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Late Pleistocene to early Holocene lake level and paleoclimate insights from Stansbury Island, Bonneville basin, Utah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Shela J. Patrickson ,
Dorothy Sack ,
Andrea R. Brunelle  and
Katrina A. Moser
Shela J. Patrickson
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Dorothy Sack*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA
Andrea R. Brunelle
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Katrina A. Moser
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2
*
*Corresponding author.E-mail address:sack@ohio.edu (D. Sack).
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Abstract

This paper reports on recent multiproxy research conducted to determine the chronology of lake-level fluctuations recorded in sediments from a natural exposure at a classic Bonneville basin site. Grain size, carbonate percentage, magnetic susceptibility, amount of charcoal, and diatom community composition data were collected from the 16 lacustrine units that compose the 122 cm stratigraphic column in Stansbury Gulch. Trends observed in the measured proxies reveal several significant changes in lake level, and thereby effective moisture, over the approximately 14,500 yr time span represented by the sediments. Results (1) verify the effectiveness of the multiproxy approach in Bonneville basin studies, which has been underutilized in this region, (2) reaffirm the double nature of Lake Bonneville's Stansbury oscillation, (3) suggest a previously undocumented post-Gilbert highstand of Great Salt Lake, and (4) identify possible teleconnections between climate events in the Bonneville basin and events in the North Atlantic at about 20,500 and 7500 14C yr BP.

Keywords

Great BasinLake BonnevilleGreat Salt LakeStansbury IslandStansbury shorelineStansbury oscillationStansbury GulchPaleolake chronologyPaleoclimateMultiple proxy
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 73 , Issue 2 , March 2010 , pp. 237 - 246
Copyright
University of Washington

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