Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI:10.1002/jqs.905 Late Pleistocene Palaeoenvironments of the

• Main Authors: Catherine H. Yansa, Allan C. Ashworth
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Lake Agassiz; North Dakota; pollen; plant macrofossils; fossil beetles and molluscs; Younger Dryas–Holocene; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Cut Bank; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.561.8307

ABSTRACT: Macroscopic plant remains, pollen, insect and mollusc fossils recovered from a cut bank on the Red River in North Dakota, USA, provide evidence that an extensive wetland occupied the southern basin of Lake Agassiz from 10230 to 9900 14C yr BP. Marsh-dwelling plants and inver-tebrates had colonised the surface of a prograding delta during the low-water Moorhead Phase of Lake Agassiz. A species of Salix (willow) was abundant along distributary channels, and stands of Populus tremuloides (aspen), Ulmus sp. (elm), Betula sp. (birch), and Picea sp. (spruce) grew on the better-drained sand bars and beach ridges. Most of the species of plants, insects, and molluscs represented as fossils are within their existing geographic ranges. Based on a few species with more northerly distributions, mean summer temperature may have been about 1–2 C lower than the pre-sent day. No change in species composition occurred in the transition from the Younger Dryas to Preboreal. At the time that the wetland existed, Lake Agassiz was draining either eastward to the North Atlantic Ocean or northwestward to the Arctic Ocean. The wetland was drowned during