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Patterns of Holocene Environmental Change in the Midwestern United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Richard G. Baker ,
Louis J. Maher ,
Craig A. Chumbley  and
Kent L. Van Zant
Richard G. Baker
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Botany, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242
Louis J. Maher
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
Craig A. Chumbley
Affiliation:
New York State Museum, Biological Survey, The State Education Department, Albany, New York 12230
Kent L. Van Zant
Affiliation:
Amoco Production Company, Room 2419 Amoco Building, 1670 Broadway, Denver, Colorado 80202
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Abstract

Four pollen sequences along a transect from north-central Iowa to southeast Wisconsin reveal the distribution of prairie and forest during the Holocene and test the use of pollen isopolls in locating the Holocene prairie-forest border. Prairie was dominant in central Iowa and climate was drier than present from about 8000 to 3000 yr B.P. During the driest part of this period in central Iowa (6500-5500 yr B.P.), mesic forest prevailed in eastern Iowa and Wisconsin, suggesting conditions wetter than at present. Prairie replaced the mesic forest about 5400 yr B.P. in eastern Iowa but did not extend much farther east; mesic forests were replaced in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois about 5400 yr B.P. by xeric oak forests. This change from mesic to xeric conditions at 5400 yr B.P. was widespread and suggests that the intrusion of drier Pacific air was blocked by maritime tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico until the late Holocene in this area.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , May 1992 , pp. 379 - 389
Copyright
University of Washington

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