Deglaciation, basin formation and post-glacial climate change from a regional network of sediment core sites in Ohio and eastern Indiana

• Many paleoclimate and landscape change studies in the American Midwest have focused on the Gate Glacial and early Holocene time periods (similar to 16-11 ka), but little work has addressed landscape change in this area between the Last Glacial Maximum and the Late Glacial (similar to 22-16 ka). Sediment cores were collected from 29 new lake and bog sites in Ohio and Indiana to address this gap. The basal radiocarbon dates from these cores show that initial ice retreat from the maximal last-glacial ice extent occurred by 22 ka, and numerous sites that are similar to 100 km inside this limit were exposed by 18.9 ka. Post-glacial environmental changes were identified as stratigraphic or biologic changes in select cores. The strongest signal occurs between 18.5 and 14.6 ka. These Midwestern events correspond with evidence to the northeast, suggesting that initial deglaciation of the ice sheet, and ensuing environmental changes, were episodic and rapid. Significantly, these changes predate the onset of the Belling postglacial warming (14.8 ka) as recorded by the Greenland ice cores. Thus, deglaciation and landscape change around the southern margins of the Laurentide Ice Sheet happened similar to 7 ka before postglacial changes were felt in central Greenland. (C) 2011 University of Washington.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Naturgeografi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Physical Geography (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Geologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Geology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Last Glacial Maximum

Termination 1

Ohio

Indiana

Midwest

Radiocarbon dating

Post-glacial

Lacustrine deposit

Greenland

Deglaciation

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)