Contributions Series Nr. 16

Description

Preface

This volume is an outgrowth of a session of the VIth International Palynological Conference held at Calgary, August 1984. Our goal in organizing the session, and in creating this volume, was to bring together a representative sample of recent palynological works focused on problems in the Quaternary of the southwestern United States. We chose to include papers with subject matter outside the Southwest proper (the Great Basin and southern California) because studies in these neighboring areas are significant for broader interpretations of past climate and vegetation in the western United States. We hope that this volume makes a useful contribution towards gaining a general understanding of the environmental history of the American Southwest.

The publication of this Contributions issue was generously supported by The Institute for the Earth and Man at Southern Methodist University, Lucy M. Cranwell, and the Department of Geosciences at The University of Arizona. We are very grateful for their support. Jo Ann Overs typed the papers and Betty Fink helped with editing. We sincerely appreciate their help. We also thank the many individuals who reviewed manuscripts for this volume.

Table of Contents

Introduction.. Paul S. Martin ………………………………………………………………..3

Palynology of Holocene sediments, Colorado Front Range: Vegetation and treeline changes in the subalpine forest

Susan K. Short …………………………………………………………………………………….7

Holocene dynamics of the subalpine forest in central Colorado

Patricia L. Fall …………………………………………………………………………………..31

Palynology in Montezuma County, southwestern Colorado: The local history of the pinyon pine (Pinus edulis)

Kenneth Lee Petersen………………………………………………………………………….47

A comparison of historic and prehistoric vegetation change caused by man in central Arizona

Owen Kent Davis, Richard H. Hevly, and Richard D. Foust, Jr……………..63

Prehistoric disturbance floras of the lower Sonoran Desert and their implications

Susanne K. Fish………………………………………………………………………………….77

Palynology and Neotoma middens

Robert s. Thompson…………………………………………………………………………..89

Two Holocene pollen records from the central Great Basin

David B. Madsen……………………………………………………………………………..113

Late glacial and Holocene vegetation and climate in the Sierra Nevada of California, with particular reference to the Balsam Meadow site

Scott Anderson, Owen K. Davis, and Patricia L. Fall…………………………. 127

A 50,000 year record of Quaternary environments; Walker Lake, Coconino Co., Arizona

Richard H. Hevly…………………………………………………………………………….141

Identification of pine pollen from the southwestern United States

Bonnie Fine Jacobs …………………………………………………………………………155

Late Pleistocene and Holocene pollen records from two caves in the Grand Canyon of Arizona, USA

Kay O’Rourke and Jim I. Mead………………………………………………………..169