Direct Marine-Continental Correlation: 150,000-Year Oxygen Isotope—Pollen Record from the North Pacific

Abstract

Core Y72 II I (43 degrees 15'N, 126 degrees 22'W) contains sediment of oxygen isotope stages I through 6 (substages 5a through 5e are well developed) and abundant pollen from the nearby continent, enabling us for the first time to obtain a direct marine-continental correlation of events in the last interglacial sensu lato. From stage 6 to substage 5e the vegetational record resembles that during the waning of the last glacial. During substage 5e, after a rapid increase of alder, western hemlock was abundant and significant amounts of redwood, oak, and Douglas fir appeared. These results suggest that vegetation on the adjacent continent during substage 5e was similar to that of the temperate conifer forests which developed in the Pacific Northwest during the Holocene. The vegetation record since that brief episode (which like the Eemian in northwest Europe lasted only afew thousand years) has been complex.