Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T14:29:19.868Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Level of Lake Lahontan during Deposition of the Trego Hot Springs Tephra about 23,400 years ago

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jonathan O. Davis
Jonathan O. Davis*
Affiliation:
Social Sciences Center, Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Trego Hot Springs tephra bed is a silicic tephra about 23,400 yr old, found at several localities in pluvial lake sediments in northern Nevada, southern Oregon, and northeastern California. It has been characterized petrographically, by the major and minor element chemistry of its glass, and by its stratigraphic position with respect to other tephra layers. At a newly described locality on Squaw Creek, northwest of Gerlach, Nevada, at the north end of the Smoke Creek Desert, Trego Hot Springs tephra has been found in sediments of the Sehoo and Indian Lakes formations. The depositional environments of these sediments show that when the tephra fell, pluvial Lake Lahontan stood between 1256 and 1260 m, and that immediately thereafter the lake rose to at least 1275 m. These data corroborate earlier findings by Benson (Quaternary Research9, 300–318) from radiometric dating of calcareous tufa. However, the Lake Lahontan area has been affected by isostatic subsidence and rebound in response to changing water loads, so that caution is required in the use of lakeshore elevations in correlation.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , May 1983 , pp. 312 - 324
Copyright
University of Washington

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

Allison, I.S.. 1945. Pumice beds at Summer Lake, Oregon. Geological Society America Bulletin 56. 789–807.Google Scholar
Allison, I.S.. 1966a. Pumice at Summer Lake, Oregon—A correction. Geological Society of America Bulletin 77. 329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, I.S.. 1966b. Fossil Lake, Oregon: Its geology and fossil faunas. Oregon State University Monographs Studies in Geology 9. 48.Google Scholar
Benson, L.V.. 1978. Fluctuation in the level of pluvial Lake Lahontan during the last 40,000 years. Quaternary Research 9. 300–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benson, L.V.. 1981. Paleoclimatic significance of lake level fluctuations in the Lahontan basin. Quaternary Research 16. 390–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Born, S.M.. 1972. Late Quaternary History, Deltaic Sedimentation, and Mudlump Formation at Pyramid Lake, Nevada. Nevada University, Desert Research Institute, Water Resources Center, Reno.Google Scholar
Broecker, W.S., Kaufman, A.. 1965. Radiocarbon chronology of Lake Lahontan and Lake Bonneville II, Great Basin. Geological Society of America Bulletin 76. 537–566.Google Scholar
Broecker, W.S., Orr, P.C.. 1958. Radiocarbon chronology of Lake Lahontan and Lake Bonneville. Geological Society of America Bulletin 69. 1009–1032.Google Scholar
Davis, J.O.. 1978. Quaternary tephrochronology of the Lake Lahontan area, Nevada and California. Nevada University, Nevada Archeological Survey. Research Paper 7Reno.Google Scholar
Davis, J.O.. 1982. Bits and pieces: The last 35,000 years in the Lahontan area. Man and Environment in the Great Basin. Madsen, D.B., O'Connell, J.F.Society for American Archaeology Papers. 2. 53–75.Google Scholar
Mifflin, M.D., Wheat, M.M.. 1971. Isostatic rebound in the Lahontan Basin, northwestern Great Basin (abstract). Geological Society of America, Annual Meeting 647.Google Scholar
Morrison, R.B.. 1964. Lake Lahontan: Geology of Southern Carson Desert, Nevada. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 401.Google Scholar
Morrison, R.B., Frye, J.C.. 1965. Correlation of the middle and late Quaternary successions of the Lake Lahontan, Lake Bonneville, Rocky Mountain (Wasatch Range), southern Great Plains and eastern Midwest areas. Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Report 9.Google Scholar
Morrison, R.B., Mifflin, M.M., Wheat, M.. 1965a. Rye Patch Dam. Guidebook for Field Conference I Northern Great Basin and California. Wahrhaftig, C., Morrison, R.B., Birkeland, P.W. International Association for Quaternary Research, VII Congress, Lincoln, Nebraska Academy of Sciences 28–33.Google Scholar
Morrison, R.B., Mifflin, M.M., Wheat, M.. 1965b. Badland amphitheatre on Truckee River north of Wadsworth. Guidebook for Field Conference I Northern Great Basin and California. Wahrhaftig, C., Morrison, R.B., Birkeland, P.W. International Association for Quaternary Research, VII Congress, Lincoln, Nebraska Academy of Sciences 38–43.Google Scholar
Rusco, M.K., Davis, J.O., Firby, J.R.. 1979. Humboldt Project, Rye Patch Archaeology, Phase III—Final Report. National Park Service, Interagency Archeological Services, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Russell, I.C.. 1885. Geological history of Lake Lahontan, a Quaternary lake of northwestern Nevada. U.S. Geological Survey Monograph 11.Google Scholar
Smith, D.G.W., Westgate, J.A.. 1969. Electron probe technique for characterizing pyroclastic deposits. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 5. 313–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valastro, S. Jr., Davis, E.M., Varela, A.. 1978. University of Texas radiocarbon dates XII. Radiocarbon 20. 245–273.Google Scholar
Verosub, K.L., Davis, J.O., Valastro, S. Jr.. 1980. A paleomagnetic record from Pyramid Lake, Nevada, and its implications for proposed geomagnetic excursions. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 49. 141–148.Google Scholar