Paleoenvironments of the Canadian high arctic derived from pollen and plant macrofossils: Problems and potentials

Abstract

Analyses of peat sections, lake sediments and ice cores provide information about Late-Quaternary arctic environments. Palynomorphs and plant macrofossils from each of these three types of sediments record different aspects of the environment with particular spatial and temporal scales of resolution. In the Arctic, the limits to the interpretation of past environments are particularly significant. Problems of low pollen concentrations, long-distance transport, stratigraphic inversions and contamination by fossils from older deposits are more serious in this region due to the biogeographic context that characterizes these high latitudes and influences the particular ecological and geomorphological processes. However, recent work has shown that past environments can be reconstructed from evidence preserved in high arctic sediments and ice cores, if these problems are taken into account before their interpretation.