Accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS 14C) dating was used for determining the age of wedge ice. It has been found that between 11,270 and 6420 cal BP, or the Greenlandian and Northgrippian stages of the Holocene, ice wedges grew syngenetically in sandy deposits with gravel in the Chara River valley. The variations of δ18O values in the ice wedges are about 8‰, from –25.5‰ to –18.8‰. Based on the stable isotope composition of ice wedges, paleotemperature reconstructions revealed that the mean January temperature was as low as –38°C during the coldest periods of the early half of the Holocene and as high as –28°C during the warmer periods.

Greenock Swamp wetland complex is one of few remaining natural wetlands in the Great Lakes region and, at 89 km2 in areal extent, is currently the largest hardwood swamp in southern Ontario, Canada. We present here pollen and sediment records from a kettle hole (Schmidt Lake) and adjacent Thuja occidentalis swamp to reconstruct regional paleoclimate and vegetation history, and to assess the timing and development of the swamp ecosystem and associated carbon stocks. Pollen-inferred paleoclimate reconstructions show the expected warming in the Early Holocene, and indicate the Mid-Holocene initiation of lake-effect snow. This enhanced snowfall may have maintained high water tables in the adjacent wetland since ca. 8300 years ago, promoting the establishment of a swamp dominated by Thuja occidentalis. Carbon accumulation rates in a >2-m-long peat core collected from a Thuja occidentalis stand adjacent to Schmidt Lake are 30–40 g C/m2/yr, which is higher than the average of northern high-latitude peatlands. Using topographic and hydrological parameters, we estimated that mean swamp peat thicknesses could exceed 2 m. Thus, this study encourages future investigations on temperate swamps from the perspective of hitherto underestimated Holocene carbon sinks and shows the importance of regional hydroclimate in supporting swamp ecosystems.

Sedimentary charcoal records are used for understanding fire as an earth system process; however, no standardized laboratory methodology exists. Varying sample volumes and chemical treatments (i.e., type of chemical for length of time) are used for the deflocculation and extraction of charcoal from sediment samples. Here, we present the first systematic assessment of the effect of commonly used chemicals on charcoal area and number of fragments. In modern charcoal the area of fragments was significantly different depending on the chemical treatment. We subsequently applied H2O2 (33%), NaClO (12.5%), and HNO3 (50%) to a late-glacial–early Holocene paleorecord and tested different sample volumes. The effects of the treatments were consistent between modern and fossil experiments, which demonstrates the validity of applying results from the modern experiment to the fossil records. Based on our experiments we suggest (1) H2O2 33%, especially for highly organic sediments; (2) avoidance of high concentrations of NaClO for prolonged periods of time, and of HNO3; and (3) samples of 1 cm3 provided typically consistent profiles. Our results indicate that charcoal properties can be influenced by treatment type and sample volume, thus emphasizing the need for a common protocol to enable reliable multi-study comparisons or composite fire histories.

We present the results of multiproxy study of a peat deposit from Carlisle Island (the Islands of Four Mountains, Aleutians). Vegetation on the initial stage of the peat is characterized by heath vegetation dominated by Ericales indicating cold conditions at 7300–6100 cal yr BP. The appearance of Betula and Alnus is the result of long-distance transportation attributable to strong winds at this time. Sedge-grass (Cyperaceae and Poaceae) communities began replacing heath vegetation at 6100 cal yr BP because of the climatic amelioration. C/N ratios and pollen spectra remain relatively stable at 6100–2450 cal yr BP. For the CR-03 peatland, volcanic tephra contributed significantly to the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy spectral data. Volcanic input created overlap of an aluminosilicate signal with carbohydrate vibrations. Significant changes occurred at approximately 2450 cal yr BP when there is the some evidence of cooler and wetter conditions of the Neoglacial. High values of δ15N observed at 7100–7000 cal yr BP reflect the fertilizing effect of seabird nesting colonies. A decrease in δ15N ca. 6900 cal yr BP may indicate initial settlement on Carlisle Island corresponding with harvesting seabirds. Human predation continued until a series of volcanic eruptions, which deposited Okmok II and CR-02 tephra layers at ca. 2000 and 1050 cal yr BP, respectively.

Radiocarbon (14C) dating is widely used to determine the age of organic material in palaeoenvironmental research. Here we compare 14C dates (n=17) resulting from macro-charcoal (>250 μm), short-lived plant macrofossils and pollen-rich residues isolated from two mire environments in eastern Australia. In most samples we found that short-lived plant macrofossils were the youngest organic component, the charcoal samples most often fell into the middle and the pollen-rich residues consistently returned older dates than the other samples. Although pollen-rich residues have been widely used for 14C dating in Australasia we suggest some caution in their use, perhaps because in our fire-prone environments these samples often also contain fine charcoal and other oxidative resistant organic matter that is older than the surrounding sediment matrix. The macro-charcoal samples also often returned older calibrated ages compared to short-lived plant macrofossils from the same depth, although this difference was relatively small (<245 years). Our results demonstrate that 14C dating of short-lived plant macrofossils are likely to yield more accurate chronologies and we advocate their routine use in palaeoenvironmental research when they are available.

We evaluated the spatial heterogeneity of historical carbon accumulation rates in a forested, ombrotrophic bog in Minnesota to aid understanding of responses to an ongoing decade-long warming manipulation. Eighteen peat cores indicated that the bog has been accumulating carbon for over 11,000 years, to yield 176±40 kg C m−2 to 225±58 cm of peat depth. Estimated peat basal ages ranged from 5100 to 11,100 cal BP. The long-term apparent rate of carbon accumulation over the entire peat profile was 22±2 g C m−2 yr−1. Plot location within the study area did not affect carbon accumulation rates, but estimated basal ages were younger in profiles from plots closer to the bog lagg and farther from the bog outlet. In addition, carbon accumulation varied considerably over time. Early Holocene net carbon accumulation rates were 30±6 g C m−2 yr−1. Around 3300 calendar BP, net carbon accumulation rates dropped to 15±8 g C m−2 yr−1 until the last century when net accumulation rates increased again to 74±57 g C m−2 yr−1. During this period of low accumulation, regional droughts may have lowered the water table, allowing for enhanced aerobic decomposition and making the bog more susceptible to fire. These results suggest that experimental warming treatments, as well as a future warmer climate may reduce net carbon accumulation in peat in this and other southern boreal peatlands. Furthermore, our we caution against historical interpretations extrapolated from one or a few peat cores.

In laboratory experiments, we investigated how media with varying ratio of peat:sand and two levels of compaction influence dispersal success of entomopathogenic nematode (EPN) species with different foraging strategies: Steinernema carpocapsae (ambusher), Heterorhabditis downesi (cruiser) and Steinernema feltiae (intermediate). Success was measured by the numbers of nematodes moving through a 4 cm column and invading a wax moth larva. We found that both compaction and increasing peat content generally decreased EPN infective juvenile (IJ) success for all three species. Of the three species, H. downesi was the least affected by peat content, and S. carpocapsae was the most adversely influenced by compaction. In addition, sex ratios of the invading IJs of the two Steinernema species were differentially influenced by peat content, and in the case of S. feltiae, sex ratio was also affected by compaction. This indicates that dispersal of male and female IJs is differentially affected by soil parameters and that this differentiation is species-specific. In conclusion, our study shows that organic matter: sand ratio and soil compaction have a marked influence on EPN foraging behaviour with implications for harnessing them as biological pest control agents.

Bentgrass was used to bioassay oxyfluorfen in leaching experiments done in columns of soilless potting media and soils, with herbicide incorporated into the upper 2 to 4 cm. Depth of herbicide leaching increased in order in the following soils: peat and sand (1:1) mix, Stockton clay soil, Yolo fine sandy loam soil, and redwood bark and sand (3:1) mix. Depth of leaching was not related to soil organic matter content. Equilibration experiments showed that peat adsorbed 4 to 5 times more oxyfluorfen than redwood bark. Less leaching was observed in potting mixtures containing peat than bark. Raising the oxyfluorfen dose from 20 to 200 ppmw increased the depth of leaching and concentration of herbicide in the leachate, while a 10-fold increase in water volume had only a limited effect. Twenty ppmw of oxyfluorfen incorporated in the top of a peat-containing potting medium has a low risk of leaching out of the container.

A well-dated palynological record spanning the interval ~ 40,500–7060 cal yr BP, retrieved from a peatland on the Leizhou Peninsula in south China, clearly shows regional vegetation and climate changes during the last glacial period. Pollen data showed that the study region was mainly covered by subtropical evergreen trees during Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3), indicating a subtropical climate with relatively high temperature and precipitation. During MIS 2, subtropical evergreen-deciduous forest with large areas of grassland occurred, implying cooler and drier conditions. Some tropical forest elements increased during the early Holocene, indicating a warm and wet trend. Several millennial-scale oscillations of the pollen records appeared to correlate with the cold anomalies in the North Atlantic region. Our records agree well with many records from other regions, but they are a bit different than that inferred from the neighboring Huguang Maar Lake. Furthermore, our results suggest that the vegetation surrounding Xialu peatland was strongly influenced by the migration of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and variability in the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM). Changes of atmospheric CO2 concentration (pCO2) levels may have also affected the long-term vegetation changes in the study region.

This paper presents new evidence from the Dhamar highlands, Yemen, of paleohydrologic response to fluctuations in Holocene climate. Stratigraphic, geochemical, and chronological analyses of highland peat and lacustrine deposits contribute to knowledge of the timing of early Holocene moisture changes on the Arabian Peninsula, providing a backdrop to understanding early cultural development in the Arabian highlands. The location of the Dhamar highlands, characterized by intermontane valleys surrounded by the highest mountains on the Arabian Peninsula and adjacent to the Indian Ocean is ideal for examining the influence of the Indian Ocean Monsoon (IOM) on the moisture history of this region. Fluctuations in the lacustrine and paleosol records of the Dhamar highlands reflect both local changes in paleohydrology and regional influences on the Holocene paleoclimatic conditions in southwest Arabia. In addition, a peat deposit with a radiocarbon age of 10,253 ± 10,560 cal yr BP documents some of the earliest Holocene high moisture conditions on the Arabian Peninsula.

The chronology of Quaternary paleoenvironment and climate in northeastern Siberia is poorly understood due to a lack of reliable numerical age determinations. The best climatic archives are ice-rich permafrost sequences, which are widely distributed in northeastern Siberia. For this study, 230Th/U-ages were determined by thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) from frozen peat in a permafrost deposit at the southern cliff of the Bol'shoy Lyakhovsky Island (New Siberian Archipelago), west of the Zimov'e River. These yielded a Pre-Eemian “isochron”-corrected 230Th/U-age of 200,900±3400 yr. This result is reliable because permafrost deposits behave as closed systems with respect to uranium and thorium. Our findings suggest that 230Th/U dating of frozen peat in permafrost deposits is a useful tool for the reconstruction of the Middle Quaternary environment of northern Siberia and of the whole Arctic.

A natural ∼1450-yr global Holocene climate periodicity underlies a portion of the present global warming trend. Calibrated basal radiocarbon dates from 71 paludified peatlands across the western interior of Canada demonstrate that this periodicity regulated western Canadian peatland initiation. Peatlands, the largest terrestrial carbon pool, and their carbon-budgets are sensitive to hydrological fluctuations. The global atmospheric carbon-budget experienced corresponding fluctuations, as recorded in the Holocene atmospheric CO2 record from Taylor Dome, Antarctica. While the climate changes following this ∼1450-yr periodicity were sufficient to affect the global carbon-budget, the resultant atmospheric CO2 fluctuations did not cause a runaway climate–CO2 feedback loop. This demonstrates that global carbon-budgets are sensitive to small climatic fluctuations; thus international agreements on greenhouse gasses need to take into account the natural carbon-budget imbalance of regions with large climatically sensitive carbon pools.

Carolina bays are nearly ubiquitous along ~ 1300 km of the North American Atlantic Coastal Plain, but relatively few bays have been examined in detail, making their formation and evolution a topic of controversy. The Lake Mattamuskeet basin, eastern North Carolina, USA, is a conglomeration of multiple Carolina bays that form a > 162 km2 lake. The eastern shoreline of the lake is made up of a 2.9-km-wide plain of parabolic ridges that recorded rapid shoreface progradation. The lower shoreface deposit contains abundant charcoal beds and laminae dated 6465–6863 cal yr BP, corresponding with initiation of a lacustrine environment in the eastern part of the lake. A core from the western part of the lake sampled a 1541–1633 cal yr BP charcoal bed at the base of the lacustrine unit, indicating formation of this part of the basin postdates the eastern basin. Lake Mattamuskeet has no relationship to the Younger Dryas or a linked impact event because rim accretion significantly postdates 12,000 cal yr BP. The shoreline progradation, and association of charcoal beds with the oldest lake sediment in both main parts of the basin, suggest that fire and subsequent hydrodynamic processes were associated with initial formation of these Carolina bays.

Siberian peatlands provide records of past changes in the continental climate of Eurasia. We analyzed a core from Mukhrino mire in western Siberia to reconstruct environmental change in this region over the last 1300 years. The pollen analysis revealed little variation of local pine-birch forests. A testate amoebae transfer function was used to generate a quantitative water-table reconstruction; pollen, plant macrofossils, and charcoal were analyzed to reconstruct changes in vegetation and fire activity. The study revealed that Mukhrino mire was wet until the Little Ice Age (LIA), when drought was recorded. Dry conditions during the LIA are consistent with other studies from central and eastern Europe, and with the pattern of carbon accumulation across the Northern Hemisphere. A significant increase in fire activity between ca. AD 1975 and 1990 may be associated with the development of the nearby city of Khanty-Mansiysk, as well as with the prevailing positive Arctic Oscillation.

Although recent studies have recognized peatlands as a sink for atmospheric CO2, little is known about the role of Siberian peatlands in the global carbon cycle. We have estimated the Holocene peat and carbon accumulation rate in the peatlands of the southern taiga and subtaiga zones of western Siberia. We explain the accumulation rates by calculating the average peat accumulation rate and the long-term apparent rate of carbon accumulation (LORCA) and by using the model of Clymo (1984, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B 303, 605–654). At three key areas in the southern taiga and subtaiga zones we studied eight sites, at which the dry bulk density, ash content, and carbon content were measured every 10 cm. Age was established by radiocarbon dating. The average peat accumulation rate at the eight sites varied from 0.35 ± 0.03 to 1.13 ± 0.02 mm yr−1 and the LORCA values of bogs and fens varied from 19.0 ± 1.1 to 69.0 ± 4.4 g C m−2 yr−1. The accumulation rates had different trends especially during the early Holocene, caused by variations in vegetation succession resulting in differences in peat and carbon accumulation rates. The indirect effects of climate change through local hydrology appeared to be more important than direct influences of changes in precipitation and temperature. River valley fens were more drained during wetter periods as a result of deeper river incision, while bogs became wetter. From our dry bulk density results and our age–depth profiles we conclude that compaction is negligible and decay was not a relevant factor for undrained peatlands. These results contribute to our understanding of the influence of peatlands on the global carbon cycle and their potential impact on global change.

New palynological and sedimentological data from St. Lawrence Island present a rare view into late-glacial and Holocene environments of the central Bering Land Bridge. The late glaciation was a time of dynamic landscape changes in south-central Beringia, with active thermokarst processes, including the formation and drainage of thaw lakes. The presence of such a wet, unstable substrate, if widespread, probably would have had an adverse impact on food sources and mobility for many of the large mammal populations. The establishment of Betula shrub tundra on the island suggests late-glacial summers that were warmer than present, consistent with regional paleoclimatic interpretations. However, the increasing proximity to the Bering Sea, as postglacial sea levels rose, modified the intensity of warming and prevented the establishment of deciduous forest as found in other areas of Beringia at this time. The mid- to late Holocene is marked by more stable land surfaces and development of Sphagnum and Cyperaceae peat deposits. The accumulation of organic deposits, decline of shrub Betula, and decrease in thermokarst disturbance suggest that conditions were cooler than the previous. A recent decline in peat accumulation at the study sites may relate to local geomorphology, but similar decreases have been noted for other arctic regions.

The Palisades Site is an extensive silt-loam bluff complex on the central Yukon River preserving a nearly continuous record of the last 2 myr. Volcanic ash deposits present include the Old Crow (OCt; 140,000 yr), Sheep Creek (SCt; 190,000 yr), PA (2.02 myr), EC (ca. 2 myr), and Mining Camp (ca. 2 myr) tephras. Two new tephras, PAL and PAU, are geochemically similar to the PA and EC tephras and appear to be comagmatic. The PA tephra occurs in ice-wedge casts and solifluction deposits, marking the oldest occurrence of permafrost in central Alaska. Three buried forest horizons are present in association with dated tephras. The uppermost forest bed occurs immediately above the OCt; the middle forest horizon occurs below the SCt. The lowest forest bed occurs between the EC and the PA tephras, and correlates with the Dawson Cut Forest Bed. Plant taxa in all three peats are common elements of moist taiga forest found in lowlands of central Alaska today. Large mammal fossils are all from common late Pleistocene taxa. Those recovered in situ came from a single horizon radiocarbon dated to ca. 27,000 14C yr B.P. The incongruous small mammal assemblage in that horizon reflects a diverse landscape with both wet and mesic environments.

The lack of paleoecological records from the montane Atlantic Rainforest of coastal Brazil, a hotspot of biological diversity, has been a major obstacle to our understanding of the vegetational changes since the last glacial cycle. We present carbon isotope and pollen records to assess the impact of the glaciation on the native vegetation of the Serra do Mar rainforest in São Paulo, Brazil. From ca. 28,000 to ∼ 22,000 14C yr BP, a subtropical forest with conifer trees is indicative of cool and humid conditions. In agreement carbon isotopic data on soil organic matter suggest the presence of C3 plants and perhaps C4 plants from ∼ 28,000 to ∼ 19,000 14C yr BP. The significant increase in the sedimentation rate and algal spores from ∼ 19,450 to ∼ 19,000 14C yr BP indicates increasing humidity, associated to an erosion process between ∼ 19,000 and ∼ 15,600 14C yr BP. From ∼ 15,600 14C yr BP to present there is a substantial increase in arboreal elements and herbs, indicating more humid and warmer climate. From ∼ 19,000 to ∼ 1000 14C yr BP, δ13C values indicated the predominance of C3 plants. These results are in agreement with studies in speleothems of caves, which suggest humid conditions during the last glacial maximum.

It has long been claimed that the coaxial stone boundaries of Céide Fields, County Mayo, are a phenomenon of the Irish Early Neolithic — analogous to later prehistoric ‘Celtic’ fields in all but age. This study argues that the age disparity is an artefact of the research methods, and that the age of the main Céide Fields complex has been overestimated by as much as two-and-a-half millennia.