Environmental and climate evolution in the Southwest USA since the last interglacial deduced from the pollen record from Stoneman lake, Arizona
Metadata
Show full item recordAuthor
Jiménez Moreno, GonzaloEditorial
Elsevier
Date
2022-11-30Referencia bibliográfica
Gonzalo Jiménez-Moreno... [et al.]. Environmental and climate evolution in the Southwest USA since the last interglacial deduced from the pollen record from Stoneman lake, Arizona, Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 300, 2023, 107883, ISSN 0277-3791, [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107883]
Sponsorship
Spanish Government PRX18/00080 PRX21/00127 CGL2013-47038-R CGL2017- 85415-R; European Commission; Spanish Government CGL2013-47038-R CGL2017- 85415-R; Junta de Andalucia P-20-00059; FEDER Projects B-RNM-144-UGR18; UGR-FEDER B-RNM-144-UGR18; Arizona TRIFresearch program 1002654Abstract
Long and continuous lake sedimentary records offer enormous potential for interpreting the paleoenvironmental
histories of the past and for understanding how terrestrial environments might adapt in
the context of current global warming. However, sedimentary records that contain multiple glacialinterglacial
cycles are scarce in continental basins. An ~80 m sediment core was recently obtained
from Stoneman Lake (STL), Arizona, containing a unique record of the last ~1.3 Ma. Here we show a
detailed pollen study of the topmost ~10 m of the record, covering the last climatic cycle since the Last
Interglacial period (MIS5-MIS1; last ~130,000 years ¼ 130 kyr), with the goal of broadening our
knowledge of the paleoenvironmental history of the arid North American Southwest in the past. The STL
pollen record shows that the MIS5e interglacial was the warmest period of the last 130 kyr. This is
deduced by the abundance of pollen types from plants that today exist at lower elevations that occurred
around the STL at that time. These include Pinus edulis and other associated low elevation thermophilous
plants such as Juniperus, Ambrosia, Amaranthaceae, Asteraceae and Artemisia. Climate cooled rapidly and
dramatically at the MIS5-4 boundary, which triggered a displacement of forest species towards lower
elevation, causing P. ponderosa to occupy the study area. MIS3 was characterized by relatively warmer
climate conditions with 3 prominent climatic oscillations (MIS3a, b and c). The coldest conditions were
reached during MIS2 (LGM), when a ~1000 m displacement towards lower elevations of the subalpine
forest species relative to present is observed. This is deduced by the highest abundance of Picea (~20
e25%) and Abies in the STL record, indicating their occurrence in the study area.Warming during the last
deglaciation is evidenced by a shift of vegetation towards higher altitudes and the development of a
montane forest composed mainly of Pinus ponderosa and Quercus replacing the LGM subalpine species.
This montane forest remained abundant throughout the Holocene. This study shows that orbital-scale
climate changes (mainly precession and eccentricity changes) forced vegetation and lake-level oscillations,
documenting that insolation had a main role in controlling environmental change in this area.
Climate projections of enhanced warming predict that P. edulis and Juniperus forest species will occupy
the study area in the near future.