POLLEN‐ANALYTICAL DATA FROM URSWICKTARN AND ELLERSIDE MOSS, NORTH LANCASHIRE

Abstract

SummaryStratigraphic and pollen‐analytical data from the margin of Urswick Tarn and from the centre of Ellerside Moss are presented and discussed. The diagrams record episodes in the local ecological history from the early part of Post‐glacial pollen zone VI almost up to the present day. It is suggested that at Urswick Tarn there was a phase of lowered lake level during zone VI contemporary with that recorded at Hawes Water in Lonsdale (Oldfield, 1960a). The Ellerside Moss record begins early in pollen zone Vila and at the end of this zone, both diagrams show a clearly marked ‘Elm Decline’separated from a subsequent ‘Landnam’phase (cf. Iversen, 1941; Morrison, 1959; etc.). Above this horizon, most of the pollen‐analytical changes in the diagrams seem to be mainly the result of successive periods of human interference with the local vegetation; the final episode at Urswick Tarn records nineteenth‐century land‐use in the area.