Preliminary assessment of climatic change during Late Wisconsin time, southern Great Basin and vicinity, Arizona, California, and Nevada

Abstract

Concentration and relative abundance of plant macrofossils illustrate compositional variations in samples from the Eleana Range-2 packrat midden. Nine macrofossil assemblages spanning 6500 radiocarbon years record local vegetational changes in the southern Great Basin of Nevada during the last one-half of the late Wisconsin glacial age. The vegetation of the Eleana Range-2 site, on a south-facing slope at 1810 meters altitude, was characterized by limber pine and steppe shrubs, from before 17,100 radiocarbon years before present to shortly after 13,200 radiocarbon years before present. Changes toward a more xerophytic plant association at the site began by 16,000 radiocarbon years before present, culminating in a major change to pinyon-juniper woodland between 13,200 and 11,700 radiocarbon years before present. The climatic reconstruction for the late full glacial episode (17,000 to 15,000 radiocarbon years before present) that is proposed to account for limber pine-shrub vegetation in the Eleana Range is characterized by increased winter precipitation, and very little summer rainfall. A major warming trend occurred between about 16,000 and 12,000 radiocarbon years before present and was largely concordant with major dessication of closed lakes in the southern Great Basin. A period of wetter conditions in the southern Great Basin during the latest Wisconsin more » may have incorporated increased precipitation during both the summer and winter, and lower temperatures during the winter, relative to the present. 93 references, 5 figures, 6 tables. « less