Comparison of histories of great earthquakes and accompanying tsunamis at eight coastal sites suggests plate-boundary ruptures of varying length, implying great earthquakes of variable magnitude at the Cascadia subduction zone. Inference of rupture length relies on degree of overlap on radiocarbon age ranges for earthquakes and tsunamis, and relative amounts of coseismic subsidence and heights of tsunamis. Written records of a tsunami in Japan provide the most conclusive evidence for rupture of much of the plate boundary during the earthquake of 26 January 1700. Cascadia stratigraphic evidence dating from about 1600 cal yr B.P., similar to that for the 1700 earthquake, implies a similarly long rupture with substantial subsidence and a high tsunami. Correlations are consistent with other long ruptures about 1350 cal yr B.P., 2500 cal yr B.P., 3400 cal yr B.P., 3800 cal yr B.P., 4400 cal yr B.P., and 4900 cal yr B.P. A rupture about 700–1100 cal yr B.P. was limited to the northern and central parts of the subduction zone, and a northern rupture about 2900 cal yr B.P. may have been similarly limited. Times of probable short ruptures in southern Cascadia include about 1100 cal yr B.P., 1700 cal yr B.P., 3200 cal yr B.P., 4200 cal yr B.P., 4600 cal yr B.P., and 4700 cal yr B.P. Rupture patterns suggest that the plate boundary in northern Cascadia usually breaks in long ruptures during the greatest earthquakes. Ruptures in southernmost Cascadia vary in length and recurrence intervals more than ruptures in northern Cascadia.

The history of variations in water level of Lake Constance, as reconstructed from sediment and pollen analysis of a sediment sequence from the archaeological site of Arbon-Bleiche 3, shows an abrupt rise in lake level dendrochronologically dated to 5375 yr ago (5320 yr relative to AD 1950). This event, paralleled by the destruction of the Neolithic village by fire, provoked the abandonment of this prehistoric lake-shore location established in the former shallow bay of Arbon-Bleiche, and was the last of a series of three episodes of successively higher lake level, the first occurring at 5600–5500 cal yr B.P. The dendrochronologically dated rise event was synchronous with an abrupt increase in atmospheric 14C. This supports the hypothesis of an abrupt climate change forced by varying solar activity. Moreover, the three successive episodes of higher lake level between 5600 and 5300 cal yr B.P. at Arbon-Bleiche 3 coincided with climatic cooling and/or changes in moisture conditions in various regions of both hemispheres. This period corresponds to the mid-Holocene climate transition (onset of the Neoglaciation) and suggests inter-hemispheric linkages for the climate variations recorded at Arbon-Bleiche 3. This mid-Holocene climate reversal may have resulted from complex interactions between changes in orbital forcing, ocean circulation and solar activity. Finally, despite different seasonal hydrological regimes, the similarities between lake-level records from Lake Constance and from Jurassian lakes over the mid-Holocene period point to time scale as a crucial factor in considering the possible impact of climate change on environments.

Hypotheses and inferences concerning the nature of abrupt climate change, exemplified by the Dansgaard–Oeschger (D–O) events, are reviewed. There is little concrete evidence that these events are more than a regional Greenland phenomenon. The partial coherence of ice core δ18O and CH4 is a possible exception. Claims, however, of D–O presence in most remote locations cannot be distinguished from the hypothesis that many regions are just exhibiting temporal variability in climate proxies with approximately similar frequency content. Further suggestions that D–O events in Greenland are generated by shifts in the North Atlantic ocean circulation seem highly implausible, given the weak contribution of the high latitude ocean to the meridional flux of heat. A more likely scenario is that changes in the ocean circulation are a consequence of wind shifts. The disappearance of D–O events in the Holocene coincides with the disappearance also of the Laurentide and Fennoscandian ice sheets. It is thus suggested that D–O events are a consequence of interactions of the windfield with the continental ice sheets and that better understanding of the wind field in the glacial periods is the highest priority. Wind fields are capable of great volatility and very rapid global-scale teleconnections, and they are efficient generators of oceanic circulation changes and (more speculatively) of multiple states relative to great ice sheets. Connection of D–O events to the possibility of modern abrupt climate change rests on a very weak chain of assumptions.

Holocene and modern travertine formed in spring-fed Havasu Creek of the Grand Canyon, Arizona, was studied to determine the factors governing its oxygen-isotope composition. Analysis of substrate-grown travertine indicates that calculated calcite-formation temperatures compare favorably with measured water temperatures, and include silt-rich laminae deposited by monsoon-driven floods. Ancient spring-pool travertine is dated by U-series at 7380 ± 110 yr and consists of 14 travertine-silt couplets of probable annual deposition. One hundred eighty high-resolution δ18O analyses of this mid-Holocene sample average −11.0‰ PDB. The average value for modern travertine is ∼0.5‰ lower, perhaps because mid-Holocene temperature was higher or there was proportionally greater summer recharge. δ18O cyclicity in the mid-Holocene travertine has average amplitude of 1.9 ± 0.5‰ PDB, slightly less than the inferred modern-day annual temperature range of Havasu Creek. The annual temperature range might have been reduced during the 14-yr interval compared to present, although other non-temperature factors could account for the muted annual variation. Silt-rich laminae within isotopically lower calcite in the modern and mid-Holocene travertine verifies the seasonal resolution of both samples, and suggests that similar temperature-precipitation conditions, as well as monsoon-generated summer floods, prevailed in the mid-Holocene as they do throughout the Grand Canyon region today.

This article presents a combined pollen and phytolith record of a 1.70-m sediment core from the wetlands of India Muerta (33° 42′ S, 53° 57′ W) in the lowland Pampa (grasslands) of southeastern Uruguay. Six 14C dates and the pollen and phytolith content of the samples permitted the recognition of four distinct climatic periods between 14,850 14C yr B.P. and the present. The Late Pleistocene period (between ca. 14,810 and ca. 10,000 14C yr B.P.) was characterized by drier and cooler conditions indicated by the presence of a C3-dominated grassland. These conditions prevailed until the onset of the warmer and more humid climate of the Holocene around 9450 14C yr B.P. The early Holocene (between around 10,000 and 6620 14C yr B.P.) was characterized by the establishment of wetlands in the region as evidenced by the formation of black peat, the increase in wetland taxa, and the replacement of C3 Pooideae by C4 Panicoideae grasses. During the mid-Holocene, around 6620 14C yr B.P., began a period of environmental change characterized by drier climatic conditions, which resulted in the expansion of halophytic communities in the flat, low-lying areas of the wetlands of India Muerta. About 4020 14C yr B.P. a massive spike of Amaranthaceae/Chenopodiaceae coupled with a radical drop in wetland species indicates another major and more severe period of dryness. After ca. 4000 14C yr B.P., a decrease of halophytic species indicates the onset of more humid and stable climatic conditions, which characterized the late Holocene.

The findings reported in this article substantially improve our knowledge of the late Glacial and Holocene climate and vegetation in the region. The data provide a detailed record of the timing and severity of mid-Holocene environmental changes in southeastern South America. Significantly, the mid-Holocene drying trend coincided with major organizational changes in settlement, subsistence, and technology of the pre-Hispanic populations in the region, which gave rise to early Formative societies. This study also represents the first combined pollen and phytolith record for southeastern South America reinforcing the utility of phytoliths as significant indicators of long-term grassland dynamics.

An ∼8400 cal yr record of vegetation change from the northern Peten, Guatemala, provides new insights into the environmental history of the archaeological area known as the Mirador Basin. Pollen, loss on ignition, and magnetic susceptibility analyses indicate warm and humid conditions in the early to mid-Holocene. Evidence for a decrease in forest cover around 4600 cal yr B.P. coincides with the first appearance of Zea mays pollen, suggesting that human activity was responsible. The period between 3450 cal yr B.P. and 1000 cal yr B.P. is characterized by a further decline in forest pollen types, includes an abrupt increase in weedy taxa, and exhibits the highest magnetic susceptibility values since the early Holocene, all of which suggest further agricultural disturbance in the watershed. A brief drop in disturbance indicators around 1800 cal yr B.P. may represent the Preclassic abandonment of the area. Changing pollen frequencies around 1000 cal yr B.P. indicate a cessation of human disturbance, which represents the Late Classic collapse of the southern Maya lowlands.

Two types of microtopographic features (plant scar mounds and plant scar depressions) on surfaces of barren desert pavements provide a unique record of the former presence of large perennial plants. Evidence of bioturbation by burrowing animals extends more than 1 m beneath each type of plant scar, indicating that both features originated as large bioturbation mounds. Formation of bioturbation mounds in desertscrub environments is generally restricted to areas beneath widely separated, large perennial plants. The contrasting forms of plant scars (mounds vs. depressions) represent time-dependent changes following disappearance of the large plants and eventual cessation of bioturbation. Plant scar mounds represent a geologically recent episode of plant mortality, whereas plant scar depressions represent the disappearance of plants at a considerably earlier time, possibly at the Pleistocene–Holocene transition. Contrasting spatial distributions of the two kinds of plant scars indicate that vegetation on alluvial fans has progressively contracted from a more diffuse, former vegetation cover, yielding the wide, barren pavement surfaces present today. In less arid portions of the Sonoran Desert, spatial distribution of recent plant mortality due to persistent, severe drought provides an analog of the progressive loss of plants from different parts of the landscape in the past.

Pollen and diatom assemblages, and peat stratigraphies, from a coastal wetland on the northern shore of Lake Erie were used to analyze water level and climatic changes since the middle Holocene and their effects on wetland plant communities. Peat deposition began 4700 cal yr B.P. during the Nipissing II transgression, which was driven by isostatic rebound. At that time, a diatom-rich wild rice marsh existed at the site. Water level dropped at the end of the Nipissing rise at least 2 m within 200 yr, leading to the development of shallower-water plant communities and an environment too dry for most diatoms to persist. The sharp decline in water level was probably driven primarily by outlet incision, but climate likely played some role. The paleoecological records provide evidence for post-Nipissing century-scale transgressions occurring around 2300, 1160, 700 and 450 cal yr B.P. The chronology for these transgressions correlates with other studies from the region and implies climatic forcing. Peat inception in shallow sloughs across part of the study area around 700 cal yr B.P. coincides with the Little Ice Age. These records, considered alongside others from the region, suggest that the Little Ice Age may have resulted in a wetter climate across the eastern Great Lakes region.

Directly dated Cucurbita from archaeological sites near Lake Huron expand the range and human usage of adventive, cultivated wild gourds or squash into the Great Lakes region, USA, by 4000 14C yr BP. The data also show that domesticated C. pepo squash was cultivated there by 3000 14C yr BP. Although milder Hypsithermal climate may have been a contributing factor, squash and gourds expanded northward during the mid-Holocene mainly by human agency and may be the first human-introduced adventive plant in temperate North America. Even after 3000 14C yr BP, when domesticated squash generally replaced wild varieties at northern sites, squash stands were probably informally managed rather than intensively cultivated.

AMS–dated sediment cores combined with ground–penetrating radar profiles from two lakes in southeastern Massachusetts demonstrate that regional water levels rose and fell multiple times during the Holocene when the known climatic controls (i.e., ice extent and insolation) underwent unidirectional changes. The lakes were lowest between 10,000 and 9000 and between 5500 and 3000 cal yr B.P. Using a heuristic moisture-budget model, we explore the hypothesis that changes in seasonal precipitation regimes, driven by monotonic trends in ice extent and insolation, plausibly explain the multiple lake-level changes. Simulated lake levels resulting from low summer precipitation rates match observed low lake levels of 10,000–9000 cal yr B.P., whereas a model experiment that simply shifts the seasonality of the modern Massachusetts precipitation regime (i.e., moving the peak monthly precipitation from winter to summer) produces levels that are ∼2 m lower than today as observed for 5500–3000 cal yr B.P. The influence of the Laurentide ice sheet could explain dry summers before ca. 8000 cal yr B.P. A later shift from a summer-wet to a winter-wet moisture-balance regime could have resulted from insolation-driven changes in the influence of the Bermuda subtropical high. Temperature changes probably further modified lake levels by affecting snowmelt and transpiration.

Core MAN015 from Pacific coastal Guatemala contains sediments accumulated in a mangrove setting over the past 6500 yr. Chemical, pollen, and phytolith data, which indicate conditions of estuarine deposition and terrigenous inputs from adjacent dry land, document Holocene climate variability that parallels the Maya lowlands and other New World tropical locations. Human population history in this region may be driven partly by climate variation: sedentary human populations spread rapidly through the estuarine zone of the lower coast during a dry and variable 4th millennium B.P. Population growth and cultural florescence during a long, relatively moist period (2800–1200 B.P.) ended around 1200 B.P., a drying event that coincided with the Classic Maya collapse.

This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief. Please see http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy.Reason: Following publication of this article, the Editor-in-Chief has realized that much of the included information had been previously published in the paper Yoon, H.I., Yoo, K.-C., Park, B.-K., Kim, Y., Khim, B.-K., and Kang, C.-Y., 2004. The origin of massive diamicton in Marian and Potter coves, King George Island, West Antarctica. Geosciences Journal 8, 1–10. As a result, the later manuscript is being retracted; readers interested in this topic should refer to the earlier paper.

A laminated sequence (core BAP96-CP 24°38.12′N, 110°33.24′W; 390 m depth) from the Alfonso Basin in Bay of La Paz, southern Gulf of California, contains a record of paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic changes of the past 7900 yr. Radiolarian assemblages and magnetic susceptibility are used as proxies of oceanographic and climatic variability. The records provide a regional scenario of the middle and late Holocene, suggesting two major climatic regimes and several millennial-scale events. Conditions relatively warmer and drier than today occurred from ∼7700 to 2500 cal yr BP, promoting the intensification of evaporation processes and the prevalence of the Gulf of California water in the Basin. These conditions correlate with strong droughts in the middle Holocene of North America and with minimal incursion of tropical waters into the Gulf of California. Proxies indicate a warm scenario and the dominance of the Equatorial Surface Water in the Alfonso Basin from ∼2400 to 700 cal yr BP, suggesting the intensification of ENSO cycles. A climatic signal between ∼1038 and 963 cal yr BP may be correlated with global signal of the “Medieval Warm Period.” Several cooling events are recognized at 5730, 3360, 2700, 1280 and 820 cal yr BP and are associated with intensification of northwest winds leading to upwellings and enhanced productivity in the Basin.