Vertebrate Tracks in Pleistocene Eolian Sand-Sheet Deposits of Alaska

• Published in: Quaternary Research
• Main Author: Lea, Peter D.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1996
• Subjects: Alaska; Beringia
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/qres.1996.0023; http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S003358949690023X?httpAccept=text/xml; http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S003358949690023X?httpAccept=text/plain; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S003358940002473X

Abstract Deformation structures interpreted as vertebrate hoof- and foot-tracks occur within upper-Pleistocene eolian sand-sheet deposits in the stabilized Kantishna sand sea of central Alaska and in the Nushagak lowland of southwestern Alaska. Exposures of tracks are generally limited to cross sections, which reveal concave-up deformation structures in which displacement of preexisting strata diminishes downward. Deposits in both areas contain tracks that are 6 to 16 cm in diameter and are divided by a central ridge, reflecting formation by artiodactyl (even-toed) ungulates. Larger (21–34 cm) tracks without a central ridge, observed in the Nushagak lowland, were formed by proboscideans, probably woolly mammoth. Large vertebrate tracks occur within irregularly stratified sand and silty sand that accumulated upon partially vegetated sand sheets, and within thin, even wind-ripple laminae of unvegetated sand sheets. The presence of tracks at multiple stratigraphic levels and preservation of roots and rhizocretions within the eolian deposits suggest that vegetated sand sheets may have formed a locally important grazing habitat for large herbivores during at least part of the last glaciation. Recognition that vertebrate tracks are preserved in eolian sand-sheet deposits, and in deposits of other environments as well, opens a new source of stratigraphic and paleoecological data to aid reconstruction of the vanished ecosystems of Beringia.