Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:15:57.105Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Late Quaternary Landscape Evolution at Flat Laurel Gap, Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David S. Shafer
David S. Shafer*
Affiliation:
Program for Quaternary Studies of the Southeastern United States Department of Geological Sciences, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tennessee 37996 USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Analysis of colluvial, fluvial, and bog sediments at Flat Laurel Gap (1500 m) in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina provides a record of late Quaternary landscape evolution. Thermoluminescence (TL) analysis provides the first absolute-age determinations available for presumed periglacial deposits in the southern Appalachian Mountains. The Pleistocene/Holocene transition, dated between 11,900 and 10,100 yr B.P., represents a period of climatic amelioration and a change from colluvial to alluvial processes. A TL date of 7400 ± 1000 yr B.P. for matrix within a block-stream indicates possible early Holocene reworking of Pleistocene periglacial colluvium. Organic sediment deposition in a bog that began about 3400 yr B.P. increased in rate from 0.02 to 0.09 cm/yr with the onset of logging and land clearance about 1880 A.D.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , July 1988 , pp. 7 - 11
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aitken, M.J., (1985). Thermoluminescence Dating. Academic Press, New York/London.Google Scholar
Ayres, H.B., Ashe, W.W., (1905). The Southern Appalachian Forests. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 37.Google Scholar
Ashe, W.W., (1911). Chestnut in Tennessee. Tennessee Geological Survey Series. 10-B, 1-35.Google Scholar
Billings, W.D., Mooney, H.A., (1968). The ecology of arctic and alpine plants. Biological Reviews. 43, 481-529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R.S., (1985). Quaternary Paleoclimatology. Allen and Unwin, Boston.Google Scholar
Clark, G.M., (1968). Sorted patterned ground: New Appalachian localities south of the glacial border. Science. 161, 355-356.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Delcourt, H.R., (1979). Late Quaternary vegetation history of the eastern Highland Rim and adjacent Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee. Ecological Monographs. 49, 255-280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delcourt, P.A., Delcourt, H.R., Vegetation maps for eastern North America: 40,000 yr B.P. to the present. Romans, R.C., (1981). Geobotany II. Plenum, New York, 123-165.Google Scholar
Hadley, J.B., Nelson, A.E., (1971). Geologic Map of the Knoxville Quadrangle e, North Carolina, Tennessee, and South Carolina. U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Geologic Investigations Map I-654, Scale 1:250,000.Google Scholar
King, P.B., (1964). Geology of the Central Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. 130-142, U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 349-C.Google Scholar
Michalek, D.D., (1968). Fanlike Features and Related Periglacial Phenomena of the Southern Blue Ridge. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Péwé, T.L., . The periglacial environment in North America during Wisconsinan time. Porter, S.C., (1983). Late Quaternary Environments of the United States. Vol. I Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 157-189, The Late-Pleistocene.Google Scholar
Pittillo, J.D., Smathers, G.A., (1979). Phytogeography of the Balsam Mountains and Pisgah Ridge, southern Appalachian Mountains. Veroff Geobotanik Institute ETH (Stiftung Rubell, Zurich). 68, 206-425.Google Scholar
Shafer, D.S., (1986). Flat Laurel Gap Bog, Pisgah Ridge, North Carolina: Late Holocene development of a high elevation heath bald. Castanea. 51, 1-10.Google Scholar
Watts, W.A., (1979). Late-Quaternary vegetation of central Appalachia and the New Jersey coastal plain. Ecological Monographs. 49, 427-469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitehead, D.R., (1981). Late Pleistocene vegetation changes in northeastern North Carolina. Ecological Monographs. 51, 451-471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar