Pollen Analysis of Mud Lake Bog in Ohio

Abstract

Mud Lake Bog surrounds a small pond lying on Lat. 400 40' N., near Long. 82? 9' WV. and within a few miles of the edge of the late Wisconsin drift. The area is partly in Sections 26-27, Washington Township, Holmes County, partly in Sections 22-23, Lake Township, Ashland County, Ohio. It lies between Wooster and Loudonville, close to the intersections of state routes Nos. 3 and I79. Mud Lake is one of a series of small lakes lying in a wide drift-filled valley now traversed by Lake Fork of the Mohican River, a tributary of the Ohio River system. The lake surface has an elevation of 940 feet, while the tops of the nearby hills reach iIoo. There is evidence that the water level was formerly higher, and the water area greater than at prsent. In contrast to this, the Bucyrus Bog, described in a previous paper (Sears, '30), lies in a shallow depression on the Ohio-Erie watershed, at an elevation of I,040 feet. It appears to have been forming peat during early post-glacial time while Mud Lake was very slowly depositing silt and marl. Its more recent deposits have been injured by oxidation during dry periods, by erosion, and by recent fires. Mud Lake, on the other hand, appears to have been forming peat continuously during recent times. Thus the two deposits are in a sense complementary. Details of the early post-glacial coniferous period appear in extenso in the Bucyrus Bog, those of more recent deciduous time in the Mud Lake deposits. The vegetation of Mud Lake Bog has been described briefly by Dachnowski ('I2). After a lapse of i8 years there appears no need to modify his account. Unfortunately the vegetation of other peat areas in Ohio has not been so well conserved. The same author discussed the peat, mentioning its generally low ash content. Samples of the peat were taken and prepared as described in a previous paper (Sears, '30). The ones reported on here were all taken at 6 inch intervals excepting for the two lowest samples which were a foot apart. Because of the slow rate of silting when the lowest deposits were formed, this gives a somewhat telescoped record of the earliest strata, but those above have yielded a clear and connected story. For most strata, over 250 pollen grains per foot were counted and identified, but in the lowest laver fossils were too scarce to permit this. Erdtman ('2I) shows that i00 to I50 grains give a good indication of the percentages of the more abundant pollen kinds, and