WOOD JAMS OR BEAVER DAMS? PLIOCENE LIFE, SEDIMENT AND LANDSCAPE INTERACTIONS IN THE CANADIAN HIGH ARCTIC ...

• Main Authors: Davies, NS, Gosse, JC, Rouillard, A, Rybczynski, N, Meng, J, Reyes, AV, Kiguktak, J
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Society for Sedimentary Geology 2022
• Subjects: 3709 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience; 31 Biological Sciences; 3103 Ecology; 37 Earth Sciences; 3702 Climate Change Science; 3705 Geology; Arctic; Beaver Pond; Canadian Arctic Archipelago; Arctic Archipelago; Climate change
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17863/cam.82220; https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/334790

ABSTRACT During the mid-Pliocene (Zanclean, ca. ∼ 3.9 Ma), parts of the Canadian High Arctic experienced mean annual temperatures that were 14–22°C warmer than today and supported diverse boreal-type forests. The landscapes of this vegetated polar region left behind a fragmented sedimentary record that crops out across several islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago as the Beaufort Formation and correlative strata. Paleoecological information from these strata provides a high-fidelity window onto Pliocene environments, and prominent fossil sites yield unparalleled insights into Cenozoic mammal evolution. Significantly, many of the strata reveal evidence for life-sediment interactions in a warm-climate Arctic, most notably in the form of extensive woody debris and phytoclast deposits. This paper presents original field data that refines the sedimentological context of plant debris accumulations from the anactualistic High Arctic forests, most notably at the ‘Fyles Leaf Beds' and ‘Beaver Pond' ...