Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T22:16:48.092Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Age of some Pleistocene interglacial beds and associated fossils in eastern Beringia defined by fission tracks in glass shards of Chester Bluff tephra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2017

John A. Westgate  and
Nicholas J.G. Pearce
John A. Westgate*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3B1, Canada
Nicholas J.G. Pearce
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Earth Science, Aberystwyth University, Wales SY23 3DB, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author at: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3B1, Canada. E-mail address: westgate@es.utoronto.ca (J.A. Westgate).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Application of the glass fission-track dating method to Chester Bluff tephra (CBt), exposed in loess deposits at Chester Bluff along the Yukon River in east-central Alaska, has clarified the age of the immediately underlying fossiliferous interglacial bed. Surprise Creek tephra (SZt), at site CRH47 in the northern Old Crow basin of the Yukon Territory, is a correlative of CBt so that the new age information on CBt can also be applied to the interglacial sediments below SZt. Two independent age determinations were obtained on CBt, 243±28 ka and 249±26 ka, giving a weighted mean age and error of 246±19 ka. Therefore, the closely associated interglacial bed belongs to the early part of Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 7. The stratigraphy and paleoenvironmental setting of SZt show that deposition of the tephra occurred soon after interglacial conditions, when the climate became colder, probably between MIS 7.5 and 7.4, that is, slightly younger than the mean fission-track age, but within the 1σ uncertainty. This result tightly constrains the age of the rich mammalian faunal assemblage found at and just below SZt at the CRH47 site.

Keywords

TephrochronologyPleistoceneBeringiaFission tracksGlass shardsGeochronologyPaleoenvironments
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 88 , Issue 1 , July 2017 , pp. 152 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bigelow, N., 2003. Latest middle Pleistocene (Stage 7) interglacial. In: Froese, D.G., Matheus, P., Rasic, J. (Eds.), Beringian Environments and Heritage of the Upper Yukon River: A Field Workshop from Dawson City, Yukon through Yukon Charley Rivers National Preserve, Alaska. Beringian Heritage International Park, the National Parks Service and the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, pp. 50–53.Google Scholar
Gansecki, C.A., Mahood, G.A., McWilliams, M., 1998. New ages for the climactic eruptions at Yellowstone: single-crystal 40Ar/39Ar dating identifies contamination. Geology 26, 343–346.Google Scholar
Jensen, B.J.L., Froese, D.G., Preece, S.J., Westgate, J.A., Stachel, T., 2008. An extensive middle to late Pleistocene tephrochronologic record from east-central Alaska. Quaternary Science Reviews 27, 411–427.Google Scholar
Jochum, K.P., Stoll, B., Herwig, K., Willbold, M., Hofmann, A.W., Amini, M., Aarburg, S., et al. 2006. MPI-DING reference glasses for in situ microanalysis: new reference values for element concentrations and isotope ratios. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 7, Q02008. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/02005GC001060.Google Scholar
Kuzmina, S., Froese, D.G., Jensen, B.J.L., Hall, E., Zazula, G.D., 2014. Middle Pleistocene (MIS7) to Holocene fossil insect assemblages from the Old Crow basin, northern Yukon, Canada. Quaternary International 341, 216–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laurenzi, M.A., Balestrieri, M.I., Bigazzi, G., Hadler Neto, J.C., Iunes, P.J., Norelli, P., Oddone, M., Osorio Araya, A.M., Viramonte, J.G., 2007. New constraints on ages of glasses proposed as reference materials for fission-track dating. Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research 31, 105–124.Google Scholar
Laurenzi, M.A., Bigazzi, G., Balestrieri, M.I., Bouska, V., 2003. 40Ar/39Ar laser probe dating of the central European tektite-producing impact event. Meteoritics and Planetary Science 38, 887–893.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lichti-Federovich, S., 1973. Palynology of six sections of Late Quaternary sediments from the Old Crow River, Yukon Territory. Canadian Journal of Botany 51, 553–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naeser, N.D., Westgate, J.A., Hughes, O.L., Péwé, T.L., 1982. Fission-track ages of late Cenozoic distal tephra beds in the Yukon and Alaska. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 19, 2164–2178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearce, N.J.G., Denton, J.S., Perkins, W.T., Westgate, J.A., Alloway, B.V., 2007. Correlation and characterization of individual glass shards from tephra deposits using trace element laser ablation ICP-MS analyses: current status and future potential. Journal of Quaternary Science 22, 721–736.Google Scholar
Pearce, N.J.G., Perkins, W.T., Westgate, J.A., Gorton, M.P., Jackson, S.E., Neal, C.R., Chernery, S.P., 1997. A compilation of new and published major and trace element data for NIST SRM 610 and NIST SRM 612 glass reference materials. Geostandards Newsletter 21, 115–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearce, N.J.G., Perkins, W.T., Westgate, J.A., Wade, S.C., 2011. Trace-element microanalysis by LA-ICP-MS: the quest for comprehensive chemical characterisation of single, sub-10 µm volcanic glass shards. Quaternary International 246, 57–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perkins, W.T., Pearce, N.J.G., 1995. Mineral microanalysis by laserprobe inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. In Potts, P.J., Bowles, J.F.W., Reed, S.J.B., Cave, M.R. (Eds.), Microprobe Techniques in the Earth Sciences. Chapman & Hall, London, pp. 291–325.Google Scholar
Pisias, N.G., Martinson, D.G., Moore, T.C., Shackleton, N.J., Prell, W., Hays, J., Boden, G., 1984. High resolution stratigraphic correlation of benthic oxygen isotopic records spanning the last 300,000 years. Marine Geology 56, 119–136.Google Scholar
Preece, S.J., Westgate, J.A., Froese, D.G., Pearce, N.J.G., Perkins, W.T., 2011. A catalogue of late Cenozoic tephra beds in the Klondike goldfields, Yukon. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 48, 1386–1418.Google Scholar
Sandhu, A.S., Westgate, J.A., 1995. The correlation between reduction in fission-track diameter and areal track density in volcanic glass shards and its application in dating tephra beds. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 131, 289–299.Google Scholar
Schweger, C.E., Froese, D.G., White, J.M., Westgate, J.A., 2011. Pre-glacial and interglacial pollen records over the last 3 Ma from northwest Canada: why do Holocene forests differ from those of previous interglaciations? Quaternary Science Reviews 30, 2124–2133.Google Scholar
Sun, S.-s., McDonough, W.F., 1989. Chemical and isotopic systematics of oceanic basalts: implications for mantle compositions and processes. Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 42, 313–345.Google Scholar
Westgate, J.A., 1989. Isothermal plateau fission-track ages of hydrated glass shards from silicic tephra beds. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 95, 226–234.Google Scholar
Westgate, J.A., 2013. New glass fission-track age of Surprise Creek tephra confirms an MIS 7 age for the interglacial mammalian fauna at site CRH47, Old Crow Basin, Yukon. Abstracts, CANQUA-CGRG Meeting, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, p. 254.Google Scholar
Westgate, J.A., 2015. Volcanic glass (fission track). In: Rink, J.W., Thompson, J.W. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods. Springer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands, pp. 941–946.Google Scholar
Westgate, J.A., Naeser, N.D., Alloway, B., 2007. Fission-track dating. In: Elias, S.A. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 651–672.Google Scholar
Westgate, J.A., Pearce, G.W., Preece, S.J., Schweger, C.E., Morlan, R.E., Pearce, N.J.G., Perkins, T.W., 2013. Tephrochronology, magnetostratigraphy and mammalian faunas of Middle and Early Pleistocene sediments at two sites on the Old Crow River, northern Yukon Territory, Canada. Quaternary Research 79, 75–85.Google Scholar