The sequence of glaciation in the midwestern United States has been defined mainly by till stratigraphy. Correlation of tills over long distances, however, is complicated by spatial variation of sediment characteristics. In east-central Minnesota three till units were previously defined. Two were considered to be lithologically identical and were correlated with the late Wisconsin advance of the Rainy lobe, whereas a third till was assigned to the contemporaneous advance of the Superior lobe. This interpretation was inconsistent with subsequent glaciological reconstructions of the Rainy and Superior lobes. In an effort to define the parent lobe of the deposits in central Minnesota, the tills were sampled, analyzed, and compared by graphical and multivariate techniques. Graphical comparisons of sedimentological parameters were inadequate to distinguish important differences among the groups. However, principal component analysis of the analytical data indicates that the original interpretation is untenable and that one of the tills formerly assigned to the Rainlylobe should now be attributed to the Superior lobe. Problems encountered with correlation of tills exposed at the surface illustrate the complexity and problems associated with subsurface stratigraphic correlation.

Detailed analysis of a site near Cincinnati, Ohio, shows that 14C ages of samples in a single geologic unit can have a range of several thousand years and ages from different stratigraphic units can overlap. At the Sharonville site, four 14C samples from organic silt below glaciogenic deposits have an inverted chronologic sequence, suggesting contamination, but nevertheless they indicate the silt was deposited before 27,000 yr B.P. A stump cluster in growth position, wood fragments, and moss from the upper surface of the silt may differ by as much as 2300 14C yr. Five ages from the stump cluster constrain the timing of a glacier advance of the Laurentide ice sheet to its southern limit in the Cincinnati area at 19,670 ± 68 yr B.P. Overlying glaciogenic sediments contain transported wood that may be as much as 3200 yr older than the advance. This range of ages points out that, for a given site, several age measurements are required to determine when a glacier advance occurred. Because the measured ages in this study span the entire interval suggested for a twofold sequence of advance, retreat, and readvance of the margin of the Miami sublobe, we suggest a single advance to its terminal position in the Cincinnati area as an alternate hypothesis for testing.

Nonglaciated lowlands in central and southwestern Alaska contain extensive deposits of upper-Quaternary eolian sand, derived largely from major outwash rivers. Although surface dunes are common, deep exposures consistently reveal that subhorizontally stratified sand and silt deposits dominate over dune cross strata. We hypothesize that (1) many of the subhorizontally stratified deposits represent full-glacial eolian sand sheets, formed when sand supply was limited by seasonally variable combinations of ice cementation, snow cover, high groundwater tables, and vegetation, and (2) many surface dunes reflect late-glacial and postglacial reworking under conditions of increased short-term availability of loose sand. The morphology of some surface dunes may therefore reflect mainly the intensity of reworking since the last glacial maximum, rather than full-glacial paleowind vectors or the age of the bulk of the underlying deposits.

Melting of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last deglaciation added large volumes of water to many rivers and lakes of North America and to the world's oceans. The volume and routing of this meltwater not only helped shape the land's surface but also played a role in the evolution of late-glacial climate. A computerized model was prepared to quantify meltwater generation from seven drainage areas along the southern side of the Laurentide Ice Sheet at 500-yr time slices between 14,000 and 8000 yr B.P. Nearly all waters reaching the oceans flowed through the St. Lawrence, Hudson, or Mississippi River valleys. Discharge through the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico during late-glacial time varied by more than a factor of 5, ranging between 17,400 m3 sec−1 (550 km3 yr−1) and 98,200 m3 sec−1 (3200 km3 yr−1). Discharge entering the North Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence and Hudson valleys ranged between 20,300 m3 sec−1 (640 km3 yr−1) and 65,300 m3 sec−1 (2060 km3 yr−1), with very abrupt, twofold changes at about 11,000, 10,000, and 9500 yr B.P. as a result of the rerouting of water from the Lake Agassiz basin. As the areal extent and mass of the Laurentide Ice Sheet diminished, the total volume of meltwater plus runoff due to precipitation from its southern side declined from 3800 km3 yr−1 at about 14,000 yr B.P. to 2100 to 2600 km3 yr−1 between 11,500 and 8000 yr B.P. No meltwater entered the Gulf of Mexico after 9500 yr B.P. After the demise of the ice sheet over Hudson Bay about 8000 yr B.P., the modern continental drainage network was established and flows through the St. Lawrence declined to modern values of about 320 km3 yr−1.

Evidence from the Boston Harbor drumlins indicates that two superposed tills were deposited during glacier advances which were separated by a long nonglacial interval. At Long and Peddocks Islands, argillans and truncated clay-filled fractures, along with discontinuities in clay-mineral composition, define the till contacts. Physical indicators separating the tills are not apparent at other exposures, where till boundaries were defined solely by discontinuities in clay-mineral composition. The weathering profile in the upper part of the lower till indicates extensive weathering under a climate similar to that of today, and probably similar to that of the Sangamon Interglaciation. The depth of the weathering profile, the sequence of clay-mineral alteration products, and the presence of pedogenic features in the upper part of the lower till are comparable to Sangamonian weathering profiles in the midwestern United States, implying that the lower till is Illinoian or older.

New data from a deep-sea core in the eastern North Pacific Ocean indicate that the western margin of the Late Wisconsin Cordilleran Ice Sheet began to retreat from its maximum position after 15,600 yr B.P. Ice-rafted detritus is present in the core below the 15,600 yr B.P. level and was deposited while lobes of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet advanced across the continental shelf in Queen Charlotte Sound, Hecate Strait, and Dixon Entrance. The core data are complemented by stratigraphic evidence and radiocarbon ages from Quaternary exposures bordering Hecate Strait and Dixon Entrance. These indicate that piedmont lobes reached the east and north shores of Graham Island (part of the Queen Charlotte Islands) between about 23,000 and 21,000 yr B.P. Sometime thereafter, but before 15,000–16,000 yr B.P., these glaciers achieved their greatest Late Wisconsin extent. Radiocarbon ages of late-glacial and postglacial sediments from Queen Charlotte Sound, Hecate Strait, and adjacent land areas show that deglaciation began in these areas before 15,000 yr B.P. and that the shelf was completely free of ice by 13,000 yr B.P.

Travertine deposits in eastern Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, are inferred to have formed under conditions of effective wetness that were greater than present. Uranium-series dating of 17 samples indicates that the deposits formed at about 15,000, 71,000, 111,000, 171,000, and 338,000 yr B.P. Intervals of travertine deposition are essentially contemporaneous with dated high paleolake levels, montane glacial maxima, and high paleowater-table levels from several Great Basin localities.

The age of the marine limit and associated deglaciation has been estimated from relative sea-level curves for the Hopedale and Nain areas of the central Labrador coast as approximately 7600 ± 200 and 8500 ± 200 yr ago, respectively. These ages indicate that the ice margin remained on the coast for up to 3000 yr longer than previously estimated. Because the central coast is due east of glacial lakes Naskaupi and McLean, the earliest the lakes could have formed was <8500 ± 200 yr ago, with their largest phases being fully established only after 7600 ± 200 yr ago. This suggests that the age of the lakes, and associated deglaciation of the central Labrador-Ungava region, is younger by at least 1500 yr than previously estimated. A late-glacial marine-based ice mass in Ungava Bay that dammed the lakes collapsed ca. 7000 yr ago. Within this time frame, therefore, the glacial lakes only existed for <500 yr. The persistence of the Laurentide Ice Sheet margin on the central Labrador coast until 7600 yr ago probably restricted the northward movement of early prehistoric people into northern Labrador.

A brief increase in wind intensity between ca. 11,100 and 10,700 yr B.P. is recorded by a sharp increase in sediment grain size at eolian sections along the Nenana River in central Alaska. This occurred at the same time as the Younger Dryas climatic reversal in northern Europe and an increase in the vigor of atmospheric circulation recorded by Greenland ice cores. Climatic fluctuations in high latitude areas during Younger Dryas time may reflect variations in the CO2 content of the atmosphere.

A 7-cm-thick flowstone sequence has been dated by extended Uranium series techniques to less than 1.25 myr, with a probable growth interval of ≥350,000–≤730,000 yr B.P. The time span is in accordance with paleomagnetic results revealing normal polarity for the whole sequence, i.e., a depositional age of <730,000 yr B.P. Oxygen isotope variations suggest deposition during three warm periods, interrupted by two isotopically cold hiatuses characterized by bulk resolution and detrital laminae. Calculations suggest that climatic transitions may have involved a shift of 1.1–2.4°C in mean annual temperatures. Contemporary flooding of the cave due to adjacent glacier expansion provides evidence for the widely held view that speleothem deposition is halted by glacier proximity. The flowstone matrix contained appreciable amounts of pollen (pine, birch) as well as larger amounts of charcoal dust. The pollen assemblage suggests a climate comparable with the present, implying that Norway has experienced at least three glacial/interglacial transitions during the growth interval of the speleothem. The warmer periods were characterized by a forest environment, with ample evidence of fire.

Quaternary lithostratigraphic units in coastal dunes have been dated at three locations in northern Australia, Cobourg Peninsula, Shelburne Bay, and Cape Flattery, by both radiocarbon dating of shell and organic carbon and thermoluminescence (TL) sediment dating. Both coarse fraction and fine fraction TL methods were used. Seventeen TL dates were measured. None of the TL dates contradict the ages given by radiocarbon. Where multiple TL dates were taken from a unit, they overlap within 2 standard deviation giving added confidence in the results. A phase of dune emplacement during the late Holocene (ca. 2700-1800 yr B.P.) was identified in two of the dune-fields, an early Holocene phase of dune emplacement (ca. 8600-7500 yr B.P.) in two of the dune-fields, and a late Pleistocene episode (ca. 24,000–17,000 yr B.P.) in both the Cape York dunefields. Three older units gave dates of about 29,000, 81,000, and 171,000 yr B.P., but these must be treated with caution.

Trends are discernible in the estimates of late Holocene rates of sedimentation and sea-level rise for the Chesapeake Bay. During most of the Holocene Epoch sedimentation rates and relative sea-level rise were equal, within the limits of measurement, at approximately 1 mm yr−1. Sedimentation rates measured over the past century, however, are nearly an order of magnitude higher, while the rate of relative sea-level rise for the Chesapeake Bay now averages 3.3 mm yr−1, as measured on long-term tide gauge records. When the acceleration in these rates occurred is uncertain, but it appears to have been confined to the past millennium, and probably to the past few centuries. The rapid sedimentation rates recorded during historic time may be a temporary disequilibrium that has resulted from a recent acceleration in the rate of relative sea-level rise.

The concept of zonality is used to link well-drained mineral soils and processes along a bioclimatic gradient extending from ca. 48° to 87° S, including southernmost Chile, the subantarctic islands, and maritime and continental Antarctica. The following environmental factors decline along this gradient: mean annual temperature and precipitation and the type and number of plant species. Six pedological zones (along with representative soils) are identified along the gradient: (1) Subantarctic Forest Zone (Podzol?), (2) Subantarctic Low Tundra zone, (3) Subantarctic High Tundra Zone (Subantarctic Brown soil, without permafrost), (4) Antarctic Sub-Polar Desert Zone (Subantarctic Brown soil, with permafrost), (5) Antarctic Polar Desert Zone (Red Ahumisol), and (6) Cold Desert Zone (Ahumisol). Zonal mineral soils in the Subantarctic Forest and Low Tundra Zones are rare, because large amounts of precipitation (≥2500 mm) and cool summers have led to thick accumulation of peat. Whereas the processes of rubification, melanization, and peat accumulation decline in relative magnitude southward, the processes of salinization and desert pavement formation increase in relative importance along this bioclimatic gradient. Carbonation and pervection (silt and clay migration) are maximized in the Subantarctic Tundra and Antarctic Polar Desert Zones. Because of the limited amount of land between 40° and 65° S and the presence of the Antarctic Convergence, comparable pedogenic zones occur at lower latitudes in the Southern than in the Northern Circumpolar Region.

Borings in the Argive Plain reveal cycles of marine incursions, each ending with a Mediterranean soil profile and followed by a prograded fluvial and coastal wedge. The sediment prism of the Gulf of Argos shelf, visible in high-resolution seismic reflection profiles, also consists of transgressive and regressive depositional sequences identified by onlap, downlap, and truncation of deposits. At least four major reflectors, recognizable by their high acoustic impedance and erosional features, can be correlated across the shelf. The sediments between each pair of reflectors represent the seaward part of a set of transgressive and regressive marine deposits. They can be matched to the stratigraphic sequence on land where each marine unit is topped by a soil. Corrected for subsidence, the terminations of the onlapping and downlapping units define a local sea-level history; its time scale can be derived from a comparison with the eustatic sea-level history deduced from ocean cores. Thus, marine seismic reflection data can be used for the correlation of Quaternary oceanic and terrestrial chronologies.

Analysis of stable carbon isotope ratios (13C/12C) of organic matter in land snail shells is used to infer middle Holocene rainfall amounts in the Negev Desert by reconstructing the distribution of C4 plants in the family Chenopodiaceae. The organics are derived from the diet of the snails, which consists of plant material, and are enriched in 13C where C4 plants are present. A survey of modern plant communities indicates that in areas receiving ≥300 mm mean annual rainfall, nearly all plant communities consist of C3 species only (no C4 chenopodes), whereas in areas under ≤230 mm rainfall, most plant communities contain one or more C4 chenopode species. In between is a transition zone consisting of a mosaic of both pure C3 and mixed C3 + C4 plant communities. Isotopic results for fossil land snails indicate a consistent geographic pattern throughout the middle Holocene, from ca. 6500 to 3000 yr B.P., with the transition zone located ca. 20 km south of its present position. This implies a near doubling of rainfall within this region as compared to present.

Ringwidth variations from temperature-sensitive upper timberline sites in the Sierra Nevada show a marked correspondence to the decadal pattern of volcanic sulfate aerosols recorded in a Greenland ice-core acidity profile and a significant negative growth response to individual explosive volcanic events. The appearance of single events in the mid-latitude tree-ring record, in connection with ice-core evidence from the arctic and historical records from the Mediterranean, indicates that the majority of these events represent climatically effective volcanic eruptions, producing temperature decreases on the order of 1°C for up to 2 yr after the initial eruption. Clusters of climatically effective volcanic events may serve as a trigger to glaciation and are consistently associated with lowered ringwidths and late-Holocene glacier advance in the Sierra Nevada. The tree-ring record strongly suggests forcing of solar radiation receipt and temperatures by increased volcanic aerosols, especially during the Recess Peak advances and Matthes (Little Ice Age) advances from 1400 to 1850 A.D. Intervals with an absence of significant volcanic aerosol production or historically documented eruptive activity correspond to intervals of significantly increased indexed ringwidth values, minimal numbers of severe annual negative ringwidth anomalies, and an absence of glacial deposits in the southern Sierra Nevada.

The late Quaternary vegetation of the semiarid coast of central Chile is inferred from the palynological analysis of profiles from Quereo (31°55′S) and Quintero (32°47′S). Prior to 11,400 yr B.P., wet conditions are suggested by the abundance of pollen indicators of swamp and aquatic taxa, such as Cyperaceae and Myriophyllum, and by the presence of traces of arboreal pollen. Since ca. 10,000 yr B.P., a trend toward increasingly drier conditions is implied by the almost complete absence of arboreal and aquatic taxa, and a general decrease in the diversity of the semiarid shrubland indicators. From 3000 yr B.P. onward, the pollen records show the reappearance of swamp and aquatic taxa, presumably associated with wetter conditions, which led to recolonization by forest taxa at 1720 yr B.P. in Quintero. The drier climate detected along the semiarid coast of central Chile during most of the Holocene extended inland to the Andean foot-hills, within the present mediterranean-type climate zone of Chile, and also affected the distribution of the winter-deciduous Nothofagus forests and the northern boundary of the temperate rain forests.

Paleoecological (pollen, phytolith, and wood) analyses of sediments, radiocarbon dated 33,000 to 26,000 yr B.P., from two sites in Ecuadorian Amazonia provide data that suggest a cooling of ca. 7.5°C below present in equatorial lowlands from 33,000 to 30,000 yr B.P. A period of warning followed in which novel species assemblages, a blend of montane and lowland floral components, persisted for at least 4000 years. These data of forest community change, from sites lying within the postulated glacial rain forest Napo refugium, provide the strongest paleoecological refutation of the refugial hypothesis yet obtained. The large temperature depression at ca. 30,000 yr B.P. allows the possibility that if maximum cooling at the equator was synchronous with the last glacial maximum (LGM) of the northern hemisphere, freezing temperatures would have been experienced in parts of lowland Amazonia between 25,000 and 18,000 B.P.

Millennium-old alerce trees (Fitzroya cupressoides (Mol.) Johnst.) have been used to develop a 1120-year reconstruction of the summer temperature departures for the Andes of northern Patagonia in Argentina. Four main climatic episodes can be distinguished in this proxy paleoclimatic record. The first, a cold and moist interval from A.D. 900 to 1070, was followed by a warm-dry period from A.D. 1080 to 1250 correlative with the Medieval warm epoch of Europe. Afterward, a long, cold-moist period followed from A.D. 1270 to 1670, peaking around A.D. 1340 and 1650. These cold maxima are contemporaneous with two principal Little Ice Age events registered in the Northern Hemisphere. Warmer conditions then resumed between A.D. 1720 and 1790. These episodes are supported by glaciological and palynological data in Patagonia. Following a cold period in the early 1800s, tree-ring indices have oscillated around the long-term mean, except for a warmer period from A.D. 1850 to 1890. Correlations between the Rio Alerce reconstruction and the regional weather stations indicate that the tree-ring variations are correlated with a homogeneous summer weather pattern covering Patagonia east of the Andes from 38° to 50°S.

Cover beds on uplifted Quaternary marine terraces in the Taranaki-Wanganui area of New Zealand include organic deposits which yield abundant pollen. In the west at Ohawe, marine shore platform deposits are overlain by laterally extensive lignites and laharic breccia, interbedded with alluvium and capped by tephra-rich loess. Following a time of presumably interglacial marine deposition on the platform, a long period of glacial climate is suggested by pollen floras dominated by grass and shrubland taxa. Trees were sparse, but the abundance of podocarps, Nothofagus, and tree ferns increased during at least one interval, suggesting minor climatic amelioration. Near the top of the section, a major change in regional vegetation is recorded by a dominance of pollen derived from podocarp-hardwood forest taxa, including Ascarina, interpreted as indicating a fully interglacial climate. The marine platform, previously assigned to oxygen isotope substage 5e, is now placed in stage 7. The overlying deposits were deposited during glacial stage 6, while interglacial substage 5e is recorded by sediment and pollen assemblages near the top of the section.