Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:34:43.916Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Palynological and Radiocarbon Evidence for Deglaciation Events in the Green Bay Lobe, Wisconsin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Louis J. Maher Jr.  and
David M. Mickelson
Louis J. Maher Jr.
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin—Madison, 1215 West Dayton St. Madison, Wisconsin, 53706
David M. Mickelson
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin—Madison, 1215 West Dayton St. Madison, Wisconsin, 53706
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A new and significant site of organic silty sand has been found beneath the Valders till at Valders Quarry in northeastern Wisconsin. This is now the earliest known late-glacial site associated with red till ice advances in the western Great Lakes area. Leaves of terrestrial plants washed into a small depression provide a date of 12,965 ± 200 yr B.P. (WIS-2293), which is significantly older than the Two Creeks Forest Bed (ca. 11,800 yr B.P.). Percentage and concentration pollen diagrams suggest that the site was open and distant from a closed Picea forest. No wood or Picea needles have been found. This date is statistically indistinguishable from 12,550 ± 233 yr B.P., the mean of three dates for the end of inorganic varve sedimentation at Devils Lake, 160 km southwest at the terminus of the Green Bay Lobe. Assuming that the Green Bay lobe vacated its outermost moraine in the interval from 13,000 to 12,500 yr B.P., only a short time was available for retreat of the ice margin over 350 km, drainage of red sediment from Lake Superior into the Lake Michigan basin, readvance of over 250 km, retreat of at least 80 km, and advance to this site. The time for these events appears to have been too short to resolve by current radiocarbon technique. This extremely rapid collapse of the Green Bay lobe has a calibrated age of about 15,000 cal yr B.P., about that of the dramatic warming seen in the Greenland ice cores.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , November 1996 , pp. 251 - 259
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

Acomb, L. J., Mickelson, D. M., and Evenson, E. B. (1982). Till stratigraphy and late glacial events in the Lake Michigan Lobe of eastern Wisconsin. Geological Society of American Bulletin 93, 289–296.Google Scholar
Alley, R. B., Meese, D. A., Shuman, C. A., Gow, A. J., Taylor, K. C., Grootes, P. M., White, J. W. C., Ram, M., Waddington, E.D., Mayewski, P. A., and Zielinski, G. A. (1993). Abrupt increase in Greenland snow accumulation at the end of the Younger Dryas event. Nature 362, 527– 529.Google Scholar
Bard, E., Arnold, M., Fairbanks, R. G., and Hamelin, B. (1993). 230Th-234U and 14C ages obtained by mass spectrometry on corals. Radiocarbon 35, 191–199.Google Scholar
Bender, M. M., Bryson, R. A., and Baerreis, D. A. (1971). University of Wisconsin Radiocarbon dates IX. Radiocarbon 13, 475–486.Google Scholar
Bender, M. M., Baerreis, D. A., and Bryson, R. A. (1980). University of Wisconsin Radiocarbon dates XVII. Radiocarbon 22, 115–129.Google Scholar
Black, R. F. (1980). Valders-Two Creeks, Wisconsin, revisited: the Valders till is most likely post-TwoCreekan: Geological Society of America Bulletin 91, 713–723.Google Scholar
Black, R. F. (1983). Late Woodfordian and Greatlakean history of the Green Bay Lobe, Wisconsin: Discussion. Geological Society of America Bulletin 94, 936–938.Google Scholar
Black, R. F., and Rubin, M. (1–. Radiocarbon dates of Wisconsin. Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters 56, 99–115.Google Scholar
Bretz, JH. (1951). The stages of Lake Chicago-their causes and correlations. American Journal of Science 249, 401–429.Google Scholar
Broecker, W. S., and Farrand, W. R. (1963). Radiocarbon age of the Two Creeks Forest Bed, Wisconsin, Geological Society of America Bulletin 74, 795–802.Google Scholar
Cuffey, K. M., Clow, G. D., Alley, R. B., Stuiver, M., Waddington, E. D., and Saltus, R. W. (1995). Large arctic temperature change at the Wiscon-sin-Holocene glacial transition. Science 270, 455–459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cwynar, L. C., Burden, E., and McAndrews, J. H. (1979). An inexpensive sieving method for concentrating pollen and spores from fine-grained sediments. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 16, 1115–1120.Google Scholar
Eschman, D. F., and Farrand, W. R. (1970). Glacial history of the Glacial Grand Valley, In “Guidebook for Field Trips, North-Central Section.” p. 131–157. Geological Society of America Meetings, East Lansing, Michigan.Google Scholar
Evenson, E. B. (1973). Late Pleistocene shorelines and stratigraphic relations in the Lake Michigan Basin. Geological Society of America Bulletin 84, 2281–2298.Google Scholar
Evenson, E. B., and Mickelson, D. M. (1974). A reevaluation of the lobation and red till stratigraphy and nomenclature in part of eastern Wisconsin. In “Late Quaternary Environments of Wisconsin.” (Knox, J. C., and Mickelson, D. M., Eds.), p. 102–117. Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey.Google Scholar
Evenson, E. B., Farrand, W. R., Eschman, D. F., Mickelson, D. M., and Maher, L. J. (1976). Greatlakean Substage: A replacement for Valderan Substage in the Lake Michigan basin. Quaternary Research 6, 411–424.Google Scholar
Faegri, K., Iversen, J., and Waterbolk, H. T. (1964). “Textbook of Pollen Analysis.” Munksgaard, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Frye, J. C., and Willman, H. B. (1970). Pleistocene stratigraphy of Illinois. Illinois State Geological Survey Bulletin 94, 204.Google Scholar
Hansel, A. K., and Mickelson, , (1988). A reevaluation of timing and causes of high lake phases in the Lake Michigan basin. Quaternary Research 29, 113–129.Google Scholar
Kaiser, K. F. (1994). Two Creeks Interstade dated through dendrochronology and AMS. Quaternary Research 42, 288–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, G. J., Lowell, T. V., and Ostrom, N. E. (1994). Evidence for the Two Creeks interstade in the Lake Huron basin. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 31, 793–797.Google Scholar
Maher, L. J., Jr. (1982). The palynology of Devils Lake, Sauk County, Wisconsin. In “Quaternary History of the Driftless Area” (Knox, J. C., Clayton, L., and Mickelson, D. M., Eds.), p. 119–135. Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey Field Trip Guide Book No. 5.Google Scholar
Maher, L. J., Jr. (1987). An inexpensive technique for cleaning small-volume pollen samples using density separation in common plastic tubing. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 52, 247–249.Google Scholar
Maher, L. J., Jr., Mickelson, D.M., and Baker, R. G. (1993). A new Late Wisconsinan interstadial site at Valders, Wisconsin (Abstract). Geological Society of America Abstracts and Programs, A225.Google Scholar
McCartney, M. C., and Mickelson, D. M. (1982). Late Woodfordian and Greatlakean history of the Green Bay Lobe, Wisconsin. Geological Society of American Bulletin 93, 297–302.Google Scholar
Mickelson, D. M., and Evenson, E. B. (1975). Pre-TwoCreekan age of the type Valders till, Wisconsin. Geology 3, 587–590.Google Scholar
Mickelson, D. M., Clayton, L., Baker, R. W., Mode, W. N., and Schneider, A. F. (1984). Pleistocene stratigraphic units of Wisconsin. Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey Miscellaneous Paper 84–197.Google Scholar
Morgan, A. V., and Morgan, A. (1979). The fossil Coleoptera of the Two Creeks Forest Bed, Wisconsin. Quaternary Research 12, 226–240.Google Scholar
Schweger, C. E. (1966). “Pollen Analysis of Iola Bog and Paleoecology of the Two Creeks Interval.” Unpublished M.S. Thesis (Geology), University of Wisconsin— Madison.Google Scholar
Steventon, R. L., and Kutzbach, J. E. (1985). University of Wisconsin Radiocarbon dates XXII. Radiocarbon 27, 455–469.Google Scholar
Stockmarr, J. (1973). Determination of spore concentration with an electronic particle counter. In “Geological Survey of Denmark Yearbook 1972,” p. 87–89.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., and Reimer, P. J. (1993). Extended 14C database and revised CALIB radiocarbon calibration program. Radiocarbon 35, 215–230.Google Scholar
Thwaites, F. T., and Bertrand, K. (1957). Pleistocene geology of the Door Peninsula, Wisconsin. Geological Society of American Bulletin 68, 831– 879.Google Scholar
Traverse, A. (1988). “Paleopalynology.” Unwin Hyman Ltd, Boston.Google Scholar
Wiese, L. (1979). “Pollen Variability of the Two Creeks Forest Bed.” Unpublished M.S. Thesis (Geology), University of Wisconsin— Madison.Google Scholar