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The Full-Glacial Environment of the Northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska, Reconstructed from the 21,500-Year-Old Kitluk Paleosol

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Claudia Höfle ,
Mary E. Edwards ,
David M. Hopkins ,
Daniel H. Mann  and
Chien-Lu Ping
Claudia Höfle
Affiliation:
Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, 99775
Mary E. Edwards
Affiliation:
Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, 99775
David M. Hopkins
Affiliation:
Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, 99775
Daniel H. Mann
Affiliation:
Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, 99775
Chien-Lu Ping
Affiliation:
Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station, Palmer Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 533 E. Fireweed, Palmer, Alaska, 99645
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Abstract

Paleoenvironmental conditions are reconstructed from soils buried under volcanic ash ca. 21,500 years ago on the Seward Peninsula. Soil development was minimal, reflecting the continuous regional deposition of loess, which originated from river floodplains and the exposed Chukchi shelf. Cryoturbated soil horizons, ice wedges, and ice-lens formation indicate a permafrost environment and mean annual temperatures below −6° to −8°C. Shallow active layers (average 45 cm), minimal evidence for chemical leaching of soils, and the presence of earthen hummocks indicate a cold and seasonally dry climate. Neither steppe nor polar desert soils are appropriate analogues for these zonal soils of loess-covered central Beringia. No exact analogues are known; however, soils underlying dry tundra near the arctic coast of northern Yakutia, Russia, and under moist, nonacidic tundra of the Alaskan North Slope have properties in common with the buried soils.

Keywords

BeringiaBering Land Bridgepaleosolspaleoenvironmental reconstructionpermafrost soilslast glacial maximum
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , March 2000 , pp. 143 - 153
Copyright
University of Washington

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