Climatic change at the end of the last glaciation in Japan inferred from pollen in three cores from the northwest Pacific Ocean

Abstract

Late-glacial pollen time-series from high-sedimentation-rate marine cores KH79-3-C6, CH84-04, and CH84-14 show the rise of successional vegetation (typified by Betula) during the replacement of boreal forest types (Picea and Pinus) by thermophilous Quercus forests. Variations in these three marine pollen records replicate the trends and timing of pollen records from Japan and the structure and timing of vegetation and climatic changes on the Pacific coast of Japan since the last glacial maximum. In marine cores KH79-3-C6, CH84-04, and CH84-14, oxygen isotope and/or marine faunal data have been interpreted as evidence of a cooling event in the northwest Pacific Ocean which is coeval with the Younger Dryas chronozone. Pollen records from these northwest Pacific cores, like those from Japan, do not exhibit a regionally replicated, statistically robust, pollen assemblage which can be unambiguously interpreted as evidence of a late-glacial climatic reversal between ca. 11,000 and 10,000 yr B.P. The apparent disparity between the terrestrial (pollen) and marine evidence for a climatic oscillation during the Younger Dryas chron in northeast Asia further complicates the variable record of this brief late-glacial event.