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Interpretation of Floodplain Pollen in Alluvial Sediments from an Arid Region1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Allen M. Solomon ,
T. J. Blasing  and
J. A. Solomon
Allen M. Solomon
Affiliation:
Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830
T. J. Blasing
Affiliation:
Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830
J. A. Solomon
Affiliation:
Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830
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Abstract

Pollen was collected from modern alluvium and from the atmosphere to document the nature and amount of paleoenvironmental information reflected by alluvial pollen chronologies. Results indicate that pollen in alluvium is a homogeneous mixture derived almost entirely from the floodplain itself. The few pollen grains derived from nonfloodplain plant communities and preserved in alluvial sediments are so well mixed that their frequencies no longer reflect the geographic distribution of the specific plant communities in which they originated. In contrast, the abundance of alluvial pollen grains, derived from the major floodplain taxa (Chenopodiineae, Ambrosia type), varies with summer and winter climate. This annual variation is preserved in alluvial pollen assemblages through a combination of processes within sedimentation basins involving discontinuous deposition events and mechanical pollen degradation. The high-frequency, wide-amplitude pollen variance in alluvial pollen assemblages contrasts with the low-frequency, narrow-amplitude pollen variance in sediments of lakes and ponds. The slight geographic variance in alluvial pollen assemblages, in contrast to the large variance in soil pollen, allows use of alluvial pollen to infer climate throughout the watershed in which pollen is sampled.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , July 1982 , pp. 52 - 71
Copyright
University of Washington

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Footnotes

1

Research supported by National Science Foundation, Ecosystem Studies Program, under Interagency Agreement DEB-72-26722 with the U.S. Department of Energy, under Contract W-7405-eng-26 with the Union Carbide Corporation. Publication 1894, Environmental Sciences Division, ORNL.

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