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Stratigraphy of the Colorado Creek Mammoth Locality, Alaska

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert M. Thorson  and
R. Dale Guthrie
Robert M. Thorson
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, USA
R. Dale Guthrie
Affiliation:
Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99701 USA
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Abstract

The Colorado Creek mammoth locality in west-central Alaska contains the remains of two mammoths that were scavenged by carnivores. Sedimentologic interpretations of the reworked eolian deposits surrounding the bones, supplemented by 10 radiocarbon dates, indicate that the lower and upper mammoths died and were buried within separate, but superimposed, thaw gullies about 23,000 and 16,000 yr ago, respectively. From our results, we propose a polycyclic taphonomic model for thaw gullies governed largely by slope aspect, rather than regional climate, and in which mixing between faunal horizons is more likely than not. Variations in the rate of silt influx and the position of the permafrost table provide a paleoclimatic proxy record that can be correlated to other records in eastern Beringia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , March 1992 , pp. 214 - 228
Copyright
University of Washington

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