A Postglacial Forest in Central New York

Abstract

In recent years studies of pollen deposits in bogs have disclosed valuable information relative to the forests of past centuries. Forest trees, being in the main wind pollinated, produce immense quantities of pollen, much of which falls in undrained depressions. As bogs develop and bog formation continues, succeeding layers of pollen are incorporated into successive layers of peat. Such pollen does not decay readily; therefore, analyses of a vertical series of samples of such pollen-containing peat make it possible to trace the history of the succession of different kinds of trees composing the neighboring forests, from the time when the bog was established. In Europe this type of investigation has been going forward about 20 years and its extensive literature has been listed by Erdtman ('27-'34). In North America, studies listed by Sears ('35) have been carried on chiefly since 1927. So far as is known this report is the first to be concerned with pollen deposits in a peat bog in New York State. The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of postglacial forests in central New York through identification of such bog-preserved pollen. The bog chosen for this investigation is a small swampy area known as Sandy Ridge Bog, which lies 12 miles north of Syracuse and 3 miles east of the village of Phoenix. The terrain in the neighborhood of Sandy Ridge is a sand flat 400 feet in elevation, broken by drumlins and wave-washed remnants of glacial ridges, extending to Lake Ontario (Fairchild, '07). The land was once inundated by glacial Lake Iroquois (fig. 1). The bog is a remnant of this glacial lake lying in a typical depression about 30 feet below the sturrounding land. It is approximately one-half by one-quarter mile in extent, with a rapidly decreasing area of open water 40 feet across, near the center of the bog. Sandy Ridge Bog lies in vegetation zone B of New York State, as defined by Bray ('30), a zone characterized by Castastea, Quercus, Carya, and Liriodendron. On the surface of the bog are some scattered, stunted Picea mariana. The dominant species surrounding the bog are: Acer rubrum, A.