HR: 0800h
AN: PP11B-1470    [Abstracts]
TI: Late Quaternary Biogeographic and Climatic Changes in Western North America: Evidence From Mapped Arrays of Packrat Midden Data.
AU: * Strickland, L E
EM: lstrickland@usgs.gov
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, Box 25046, Mail Stop 980 Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225 United States
AU: Thompson, R S
EM: rthompson@usgs.gov
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, Box 25046, Mail Stop 980 Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225 United States
AU: Anderson, K H
EM: Katherine.Anderson@colorado.edu
AF: Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado UCB 450, Boulder, CO 80309 United States
AU: Pelltier, R T
EM: rtpelltier@usgs.gov
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, Box 25046, Mail Stop 980 Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225 United States
AB: The USGS/NOAA North American Packrat Midden Database is a standardized archive of published paleobotanical data derived from packrat middens in western North America. We use midden age, location, and species presence-absence data from this dataset to generate maps illustrating the past occurrence of important woody plant taxa in western North America during the late Quaternary. We explore late Quaternary changes in the distributions of selected plant taxa commonly found in packrat middens and presently associated with western desert ( Carnegiea gigantea), steppe ( Artemisia tridentata-type), woodland (pinyon pines), montane ( Pinus ponderosa), and subalpine ( Pinus flexilis) plant communities. We compare the current geographic and climatic distributions of these taxa with the present-day climates at sites where these taxa have been found in packrat midden macrofossil assemblages. These comparisons suggest that late Pleistocene climates in western North America were generally characterized by cooler-than-present summers and by much greater-than-present mean annual precipitation.
UR: http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/data/midden/
DE: 0434 Data sets
DE: 0459 Macro- and micropaleontology (3030, 4944)
DE: 0476 Plant ecology (1851)
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology (0473, 4900)
DE: 4950 Paleoecology
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005