Wood rat (Neotoma) deposits preserved in dry rock shelters have radiocarbon ages extending from close to the present to >40,000 BP, thus providing elaborate samples of changing vegetation during the climatic shifts of the late Pleistocene and Holocene. The established record extends geographically from Oregon and Wyoming (at 45°N) south to Baja California, Sonora, and to Tehuacan (at 18°N) in southern Mexico. Several hundred ancient middens have been uncovered, and over 130 have been radiocarbon-dated.

There are about 20 extant species of Neotoma with a combined range extending from the Yukon and New England to Nicaragua and Florida. Hence, a wider application for the method seems likely, wherever dry caves favor preservation. The acquisitive rats accumulate an incredibly detailed inventory of the local flora and fauna within a small home range, measured at about 100 m or less in radius. The biomass spectrum of a modern wood rat deposit was compared with associated pollen spectra and source vegetation. The most dominant arborescent species, as determined by a quantitative study of the local vegetation, were proportionately represented in the midden, but not in the pollen rain. Less dominant species were variable in proportionality.

A novel approach to the comparative ecological physiology of long-dead plants has been demonstrated with macrofossils from ancient wood rat deposits. The ratio of the stable isotopes of carbon (13C/12C) is more altered from the atmospheric proportion during CO2 fixation by C3 plants than it is by the different (PEP) carboxylating enzyme of heliophile or xerophytic, C4 or CAM plants. Mass spectrometry of the carbon of macrofossils enables the distinction to be made in the past.

The desiccated, allelochemic urine, or amberat, indurates and preserves the middens by cementing the loose debris of macrofossils into a tough, coherent mass of surprising strength and rigidity, that adheres tenaciously to rock surfaces. Water softens the most indurated middens by dissolving the crystallized urine, causing them to dislodge and to fall apart; it also removes the osmotic and allelochemic deterrent to decay by fungi, or to consumption by termites, crickets, or other decomposing herbivores. A secure position in a dry rock shelter is therefore essential to preservation of the macrofossils for time periods on the order of 104 years. Attrition with time is seen in the frequency distribution of radiocarbon dates obtained on 132 Neotoma middens. The distribution is skewed toward the end of the Wisconsin glacial and the Holocene, and there is a decline in frequency with age. Cave erosion, including destructive rockfalls and new crevices that admit seepage and cause deterioration and dislodgement of the middens, is probably the main factor in the progressive attrition with increasing age.

Heavy mineral analysis is a useful tool in tracing the changes in the hydrographic setting of the Nile through time. Analyses by the writer and others are presented to differentiate between a former Nilotic system, a Proto-Nile, and the modern Nile system, and to demonstrate the changes undergone by the modern Nile.

The Proto-Nile was almost totally dependent upon discharge from equatorial and sub-equatorial tributaries in East Africa and from local Sudano-Egyptian affluents. The modern Nile system, in contrast, is dominated by contributions from the Blue Nile and the Atbara River, which drain the Ethiopian Plateau. The discharge of these rivers is governed by the monsoonal rains which are responsible for the summer floods in the Lower Nile Basin. It has been generally believed that this riverine system is very recent, perhaps not much older than 20,000 years. The evidence presented in this paper indicates that the Modern Nile system was well established by the later part of the Middle Pleistocene. In its early stage, the modern Nile was characterized by greater contributions from the non-Ethiopian East African and Sudano-Egyptian tributaries than at present.

Changes of climate have characterized parts, and at times apparently all, of Earth's surface. Changes that have occurred during the Quaternary period have special significance because, being comparatively recent, they are revealed by physical geologic features that are still at or near the surface, as yet little damaged by erosion. Although some of these features can be interpreted in terms that are broadly quantitative, most are still only qualitative in that they are limited to specifying climatic parameters that are positive or negative relative to those prevailing today in the same area. The common parameters indicated by the physical evidence include temperature (mean annual or summer) and precipitation (mean annual or seasonal). More rarely directions and minimum speeds of effective winds can be specified. A useful basis for reconstructions of former climates is a checklist of the relict geologic features from which climatic inferences can be drawn. Such a list is given here.

Cryoplanation terraces are bedrock steps or terraces on ridge crests and hilltops. The tread or “flat” area is 10 to several hundred meters wide and long and slopes from 1 to 5° parallel to the ridge crests. Terrace scarps may be from 1 to 75 m high. Terraces are cut into all bedrock types and are best developed on closely jointed, fine-grained bedrock. The scarps and treads are covered with frost-rived rubble 1 to 2 m thick. The rubble on treads is perennially frozen at a depth of 1 to 2 m or less on sharp but inactive terraces in Alaska.

Cryoplanation terraces exist in many parts of the world in present or past periglacial environments. They occur chiefly in nonglaciated regions and near the general altitude of snowline. Cryoplanation terraces form by scarp retreat as the result of nivation. Surficial debris is removed across the terrace tread by mass-wasting. Terrace morphology depends mainly upon climate, bedrock type, and terrace orientation.

No climatic data are available from active terraces. Indirect evidence indicates that climatic requirements include low snowfall and cold summer temperatures. Shallow permafrost is necessary to provide moisture and a base for mass movement as well as a base for nivation.

Hundreds of sharp but inactive terraces occur in some areas in Alaska where the summer temperature is colder than 10°C. When these terraces were active, temperatures were colder. Recent work in Alaska indicates that terraces were active in some areas when the mean July temperature was about 4°C. The mean annual air temperature probably was in the neighborhood of -12°C or colder.

A paleolimnological study was undertaken to investigate changes in three Minnesota lakes over the last 100 years and to demonstrate the stratigraphic effects of cultural eutrophication in two of them. The study combined the analysis of the lake sediment from short cores with stratigraphic analyses of pollen, plant macrofossils, mollusks, diatoms and certain other algae, chydorid Cladocera, and Daphnia ephippia.

The rise of Ambrosia type pollen (ragweed) marks the onset of interference with the landscape by European man, which can be closely dated. Calculations of sedimentation rates from this base gave reasonable correlations of other stratigraphic events with historical events.

Elk Lake is considered “unpolluted” today and was chosen as a control. Man's effects are limited to logging some of the surrounding forest and to the construction of a dam. Small changes in the lake's fauna and flora are demonstrated, showing the sensitivity of the lake to changes in its catchment area.

Lake Sallie and St. Clair Lake, in the same watershed as the city of Detroit Lakes, have been affected not only by logging but also by addition of nutrients from agricultural runoff and sewage effluent. Considerable responses by the lake organisms are apparent. In Lake Sallie the changes were gradual, but in St. Clair Lake they were very abrupt because the lake was partially drained at the same time and the water volume was thereby reduced.

The merits of such an integrated study, the types of information gained from the analyses of the various fossils, and the wider application of the results are discussed.

The absolute elevations of sea level 103,000 and 82,000 years ago have been estimated as −15 and −13 m, respectively, from the present elevations of emergent reefs on Barbados (Broecker et al., 1968; Matthews, 1973; Bloom et al., 1974). The “Barbados model” requires two assumptions: (1) that sea level was +6 m 124,000 years ago, and (2) that rates of uplift on short individual traverses have been uniform during the last 125,000 years.

A test of the derived values on Barbados itself does not yield uniform rates of uplift between 124,000 and 82,000 years ago. Less reliably dated strand line features on less uplifted coasts suggest that sea level 124,000 years ago differed from sea levels 103,000 and 82,000 years ago by smaller amounts than those suggested by the “Barbados model.” Such smaller differences yield more uniform rates of uplift between 124,000 and 82,000 years ago, on New Guinea as well as on Barbados, than do the larger. The “Barbados model” is not sufficiently precise to yield close estimates of past elevations of sea level. Better values will eventually be derived from low uplift coasts, when stratigraphic and radiometric data from them have achieved the credibility of data from moderate to high uplift coasts.

Man's interference with the landscape process places him in the role of a “paraglacial” agent: He tends to duplicate ice-age stresses such as deforestation, accelerated erosion, and climate alteration. Against a background climatic control dictated by the Milankovich mechanisms, the 10,000-year history of the Holocene has seen very large secondary modulations that must be better understood so that they may be distinguished from anthropogenic effects. If they are exogenetically controlled, as it seems, then they are probably predictable from astronomic data. Four geomorphic type areas are selected for demonstrating Holocene changes in tropical regions, because they have been somewhat neglected within the framework of Quaternary science and because they include some of the most fragile and easily disrupted environments: lakes, semiarid desert margins, coastlines, and coral reefs. In a nutshell, the tropical Holocene has seen three major changes: (a) the evolution from the hyperaridity of the last pleniglacial stage to the “postglacial pluvial”; (b) the “climatic optimum,” which was highly diachronous and strongly retarded as it shifted from low latitudes to high; (c) the postoptimum “deterioration” that has involved desiccation of lakes, readvances of the deserts, fall of sea level, and truncation of coral reefs. While this deterioration is predictable in terms of an interglacial-glacial climatic transition, strong natural climatic oscillations, not yet well understood, together with man's activities, make the future a cause for concern.

Successive surveys of the cross section of ephemeral channels in New Mexico over a period of 15 years 1960–1975, show that arroyos that were actively eroding early in the century have reversed the trend and are alluviating. This appears to be associated with the worldwide cooling trend that began about 1940. If the inference proves to be correct, it is significant hydrologically, for it provides some specific knowledge of the climatic conditions associated with the alternate periods of valley erosion and valley alluviation that created the widespread terraces of the semiarid West.

In south-central Chile, the Río Ignao nonglacial deposit with a minimal radiocarbon age of 56,000 +2000, −1700 yr shows the following sequence of pollen assemblages, starting with the oldest: Gramineae (zone 1), Gramineae-Corynabutilon-Lomatia-Ovidia (zone 2), Nothofagus-Embothrium-Gramineae (zone 3A), Nothofagus-Gramineae-Tubuliflorae (zone 3B and D), and Nothofagus-Drimys-Myrtaceae (zone 3A). This sequence implies an initial dry and rather cold climate that later became wetter and somewhat warmer, reached a warm peak, and ultimately became colder and drier. At the warmest time, the Andean tree line is estimated to have been about 900 m lower and average January (summer) temperature about 3–4°C colder than at present. The Río Ignao deposit is believed to represent an early interstade of the last glaciation, known in southern Chile as the Llanquihue Glaciation.

Calcium carbonate dissolution has been studied in eight piston cores from the western Gulf of Mexico ranging in depth from 965 to 3630 m. The degree of dissolution throughout the cores was determined by studies of foraminiferal test fragmentation, benthonic foraminiferal abudance, calcium carbonate concentration, and various relationships between solution-resistant and solution-susceptible species. The paleoclimatic history recorded in these cores is similar to those defined previously in the Gulf of Mexico and equatorial Atlantic. Two mesgascopically distinct ash layers and well-defined planktonic foraminiferal subzones permit precise intercore correlation of dissolution horizons. All cores demonstrate intense dissolution during several subzones, especially during the early-middle Y, X1, and W1. Other less consistent dissolution horizons occur in various cores. Sedimentation rates increase while calcite concentrations decrease during glacial episodes suggesting increased dilution by terrigenous materials. Despite this, glacial episodes show greater dissolution and worse preservation of foraminiferal tests. Therefore, increased dissolution of calcium carbonate during glacial episodes must be a function of some mechanism that more than compensates for the increased rate of burial by terrigenous sediments. Dissolution is dissolution processes are not responsible for the observed effects. The oxidation of organic material may be the primary mechanism controlling the dissolution of calcium carbonate in the western Gulf of Mexico.

Winter climatic anomalies in the North Pacific sector and western North America are statistically calibrated with tree-ring data in western North America and reconstructed back to AD 1700. The results are verified using climatic data from the last half of the 19th century, which is prior to the calibration period. Climatic conditions reconstructed for 18th and 19th century winters are then summarized and compared with the 20th century record.

For more than a century it has been postulated that the Holocene vegetation of western Europe has changed in significant ways. A half-century ago a lively debate revolved on whether there were one or two dry intervals causing bogs to dry out and become forested, or whether instead the climate warmed to a maximum and then cooled. Today none of these climatic schemes is accepted without reservation, because two nonclimatic factors are recognized as significant: the differential immigration rates of dominant tree types (e.g., spruce in the north and beech in the south) brought unexpected changes in forest composition, and Neolithic man cleared the forest for agriculture and thereby disrupted the natural plant associations.

In North America some of the same problems exist. In the hardwood forests of the Northeast, which are richer than but otherwise not unlike those of western Europe, the successive spread of white pine, hemlock, beech, hickory, and chestnut into oakdominated forests provides a pollen sequence that may yield no climatic message. On the other hand, on the ecotone between these hardwood forests and the conifer forests of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence area, the southward expansion of spruce, fir, and tamarack in the late Holocene implies a climatic cooling of regional importance, although the progressive conversion of lakes to wetlands favored the expansion of wetland forms of these genera.

In the southeastern states the late-Holocene expansion of southern pines has uncertain climatic significance. About all that can be said about the distribution and ecology of the 10 or so species is that some of them favor sandy soils and are adapted to frequent fires. In coastal areas the expansion of pines was accompanied by development of great swamps like Okefenokee and the Everglades—perhaps related to the stabilization of the water table after the early Holocene rise of sea level. The vegetation replaced by the pines in Florida consisted of oak scrub with prairie-like openings, indicating dry early Holocene conditions, which in fact had also prevailed during the time of Wisconsin glaciation.

In the Midwest the vegetation history provides a clearer record of Holocene climatic change, at least along the prairie border in Minnesota. With the withdrawal of the boreal spruce forest soon after ice retreat, pine forest and hardwood forest succeeded rapidly, as in the eastern states. But prairie was not far behind. By 7000 years ago the prairie had advanced into east-central Minnesota, 75 miles east of its present limit. It then withdrew to the west, as hardwoods expanded again, followed by conifers from the north. The sequence easily fits the paleoclimatic concept of gradual warming and drying to a maximum, followed by cooling to the present day. It is supported by independent fossil evidence from lake sediments, showing that lakes were shallow or even intermittently dry during mid-Holocene time.

Here we have a paleoclimatic pattern that is consistent with the record from glaciers in the western mountains—a record that involves a late-Holocene Neoglaciation after a mid-Holocene interval of distant glacial recession. Just as the Neoglaciation is time-transgressive, according to the review of its evidence by Porter and Denton, so also is the mid-Holocene episode of maximum warmth, and they are thus both geologicclimate units. The warm episode is commonly termed the Hypsithermal, which, however, was defined by Deevey and Flint as a time-stratigraphic unit that is supposed to have time-parallel rather than time-transgressive boundaries. It was defined on the basis of pollen-zone boundaries in western Europe and the northeastern United States that have a sound biogeographic but questionable paleoclimatic basis. Perhaps it should be redefined as Porter and Denton suggest, as a geologic-climate unit with recognizable time-transgressive boundaries that match the gradual geographic shifts in the general circulation of the atmosphere and the resulting location of storm tracks and weather patterns. Holocene glacial and vegetational progressions provide a good record of climatic change, if one can work out the lag effects related to the glacial economy and the geographic factors controlling tree migration. The terminology for the Holocene, where so much time control is available, should indicate the dynamic character not only of the climate but also of the geologic and biogeographic processes controlled by climate.

Characteristic variations in glacial and interglacial periods are shown by the CaCO3 contents, amounts and grain size of terrigenous material (>40 μm), quartz/mica ratios, and desert quartz numbers in East Atlantic sediment cores, collected during Meteor cruise 25 off Sahara and Senegal, 15–27°N. The following results were obtained. During Holocene an arid climate with eolian supply from the continent prevailed throughout the region (fine grained, slight terrigenous input; high CaCO3 values; high desert quartz numbers) except in the Senegal area. Here terrigenous muds indicate river supply and hence humid climate. During upper and lower Würn the climate was humid in the present day Sahara north of 20°N (low desert quartz numbers: input of large quantities of coarse terrigenous material; low CaCO3 values). South of 20°N the climate was arid, the Senegal river input disappeared during upper Würm, desert quartz numbers are as high as in Sahara dune samples, and wind strength was stronger than in the Holocene. Climate during middle Würm resembled Holocene climatic conditions. Climatic conditions during Eem (Riss) were probably similar to those during Holocene (Würm).