Dead Man Lake (elevation 2,800 m) is one of several hundred shallow lakes on the flat, rolling crest of the Chuska Mountains. The lacustrine sediments consist of 7 to 10 m late—Pleistocene sandy silt or fine sand beneath only 0.1 to 0.3 m Holocene organic mud. Five faunal zones in the Pleistocene sediments contain distinctive assemblages of Cladocera and larval Chironomidae. The Chydoridae were the dominant Cladocera during Wisconsin glaciopluvial time, but only two or three species occurred in any of the zones. Tanytarsini and Procladius (Tanypodinae) were usually the dominant Chironomidae; populations of Orthocladiinae and Chironomini were smaller and chronologically discontinuous. The Pleistocene fauna is an impoverished as in other Pleistocene lake sediments and in modern arctic lakes. Therefore the faunal assemblages support the palynological evidence for alpine conditions on the crest of the Chuska Mountains during Wisconsin glaciopluvial time. The organic mud deposited since the end of the Pleistoc...