The Holocene record of lake levels of Mansell Pond, central Maine, USA

Almquist, Heather; Dieffenbacher-Krall, Ann C.; Flanagan-Brown, Riley; Sanger, David

doi:10.1191/095968301677768783

Cited by 57 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…A more likely explanation is that fire declined as climate became effectively wetter (Webb et al 1993, Almquist et al 2001, Shuman 2001. Although one other study also shows evidence for declining charcoal abundance over the past 3000-5000 years on eastern Cape Cod (Winkler 1985(Winkler , 1997, other Holocene-scale records are lacking to say whether this was a general pattern in New England.…”

Section: Changes In Vegetation and Fire 1500 Years Agomentioning

confidence: 91%

Long-Term History of Vegetation and Fire in Pitch Pine–oak Forests on Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Parshall

Foster

Faison

et al. 2003

Ecology

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Abstract. Human disturbance in northeastern North America over the past four centuries has led to dramatic change in vegetation composition and ecosystem processes, obscuring the influence of climate and edaphic factors on vegetation patterns. We use a paleoecological approach on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to assess landscape-scale variation in pitch pine-oak vegetation and fire occurrence on the pre-European landscape and to determine changes resulting from European land use. Fossil pollen and charcoal preserved in seven lakes confirm a close link between landform and the pre-European distribution of vegetation. Pine forests, dominated by Pinus rigida, were closely associated with xeric outwash deposits, whereas oak-hardwood forests were associated with landforms having finer grained soils and variable topography. In general, fire was much more abundant on Cape Cod than most other areas in New England, but its occurrence varied geographically at two scales. On the western end of Cape Cod, fires were more prevalent in pine forests (outwash) than in oak-hardwood forests (moraines). In contrast, fires were less common on the narrow and north-south trending eastern Cape, perhaps because of physical limits on fire spread.The most rapid and substantial changes during the past 2000 years were initiated by European settlement, which produced a vegetation mosaic that today is less clearly tied to landform. Quercus and other hardwood trees declined in abundance in the early settlement period in association with land clearance, whereas Pinus has increased, especially during the past century, through natural reforestation and planting of abandoned fields and pastures. An increase in fossil charcoal following European settlement suggests that fire occurrence has risen substantially as a result of forest clearance and other land uses, reaching levels greater than at any time over the past 2000 years. Although fire was undoubtedly used by Native Americans and may have been locally important, we find no clear evidence that humans extensively modified fire regimes or vegetation before European settlement. Instead, climate change over the past several thousand years and European land use over the past 300 years have been the most important agents of change on this landscape.

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Section: Changes In Vegetation and Fire 1500 Years Agomentioning

confidence: 91%

Long-Term History of Vegetation and Fire in Pitch Pine–oak Forests on Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Parshall

Foster

Faison

et al. 2003

Ecology

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“…Data reflecting hydroclimatic variability are more abundant in the NE US, coming from tree-rings (e.g., Cook andKrusic, 2004, 2008;Pederson et al, 2014), lake levels (e.g., Shuman et al, 2002), variations in lake chemistry (e.g., Li et al, 2007), shifts in diatoms (Boeff et al, 2016), and changes in testate amoeba composition from bog sediments (e.g., Booth et al, 2012). Such data show relatively wet conditions in the late versus the mid-Holocene (Digerfeldt et al, 1992;Almquist et al, 2001;Shuman et al, 2009) with increasing effective moisture towards present (Newby et al, 2014). Episodic drought and pluvial events, documented by a variety of proxies, are superimposed on the gradual trend towards increasing moisture (Pederson et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Climatic history of the northeastern United States during the past 3000 years

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Many ecosystem processes that influence Earth system feedbacks -vegetation growth, water and nutrient cycling, disturbance regimes -are strongly influenced by multidecadal-to millennial-scale climate variations that cannot be directly observed. Paleoclimate records provide information about these variations, forming the basis of our understanding and modeling of them. Fossil pollen records are abundant in the NE US, but cannot simultaneously provide information about paleoclimate and past vegetation in a modeling context because this leads to circular logic. If pollen data are used to constrain past vegetation changes, then the remaining paleoclimate archives in the northeastern US (NE US) are quite limited. Nonetheless, a growing number of diverse reconstructions have been developed but have not yet been examined together. Here we conduct a systematic review, assessment, and comparison of paleotemperature and paleohydrological proxies from the NE US for the last 3000 years. Regional temperature reconstructions (primarily summer) show a long-term cooling trend (1000 BCE-1700 CE) consistent with hemispheric-scale reconstructions, while hydroclimate data show gradually wetter conditions through the present day. Multiple proxies suggest that a prolonged, widespread drought occurred between 550 and 750 CE. Dry conditions are also evident during the Medieval Climate Anomaly, which was warmer and drier than the Little Ice Age and drier than today. There is some evidence for an acceleration of the longer-term wetting trend in the NE US during the past century; coupled with an abrupt shift from decreasing to increasing temperatures in the past century, these changes could have wide-ranging implications for species distributions, ecosystem dynamics, and extreme weather events. More work is needed to gather paleoclimate data in the NE US to make inter-proxy comparisons and to improve estimates of uncertainty in reconstructions.

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“…Records from the region show multi-millennial trends in water levels with lower-than-modern levels from 11.0-8.0 cal ka BP, intermediate levels from 8.0-5.5 cal ka BP, low levels from 5.5-3.0 cal ka BP and high levels from 3.0 cal ka BP to present (Almquist et al, 2001;Dieffenbacher-Krall and Nurse, 2005;Newby et al, 2000;Shuman et al, 2001Shuman et al, , 2005Webb et al, 1993). More recent work has emphasized the potential for sub-millennial scale hydroclimate variation within this regional framework.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Repeated century-scale droughts over the past 13,000 yr near the Hudson River watershed, USA

et al. 2011

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Sediment and ground-penetrating radar data from Davis Pond near the Hudson River valley reveal past droughts in a historically humid region that presently supplies water to millions of people in and around New York City. A minimum of eleven sandy paleoshoreline deposits in the lake date from 13.4-0.6 cal ka BP. The deposits span 1500 to 200 years between bracketing radiocarbon dates, and intrude into lacustrine silts up to 9.0 m below the modern lake surface in a transect of six cores. Three lowstands, ca. 13.4-10.9, 9.2 and 8.2 cal ka BP indicate low regional moisture balance when low temperatures affected the North Atlantic region. Consistent with insolation trends, water levels rose from ca. 8.0 cal ka BP to present, but five low stands interrupted the rise and are likely associated with ocean-atmosphere interactions. Similar to evidence from other studies, the data from Davis Pond indicate repeated multi-century periods of prolonged or frequent droughts super-imposed on long-term regional trends toward high water levels. The patterns indicate that water supplies in this heavily populated region have continuously varied at multiple time scales, and confirm that humid regions such as the northeastern USA are more prone to severe drought than historically expected.

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The Holocene record of lake levels of Mansell Pond, central Maine, USA

Cited by 57 publications

References 18 publications

Long-Term History of Vegetation and Fire in Pitch Pine–oak Forests on Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Long-Term History of Vegetation and Fire in Pitch Pine–oak Forests on Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Climatic history of the northeastern United States during the past 3000 years

Repeated century-scale droughts over the past 13,000 yr near the Hudson River watershed, USA

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