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Late Quaternary Landscape Evolution at Flat Laurel Gap, Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David S. Shafer
David S. Shafer*
Affiliation:
Program for Quaternary Studies of the Southeastern United States Department of Geological Sciences, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tennessee 37996 USA
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Abstract

Analysis of colluvial, fluvial, and bog sediments at Flat Laurel Gap (1500 m) in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina provides a record of late Quaternary landscape evolution. Thermoluminescence (TL) analysis provides the first absolute-age determinations available for presumed periglacial deposits in the southern Appalachian Mountains. The Pleistocene/Holocene transition, dated between 11,900 and 10,100 yr B.P., represents a period of climatic amelioration and a change from colluvial to alluvial processes. A TL date of 7400 ± 1000 yr B.P. for matrix within a block-stream indicates possible early Holocene reworking of Pleistocene periglacial colluvium. Organic sediment deposition in a bog that began about 3400 yr B.P. increased in rate from 0.02 to 0.09 cm/yr with the onset of logging and land clearance about 1880 A.D.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , July 1988 , pp. 7 - 11
Copyright
University of Washington

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