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New evidence for an extended occupation of the Provo shoreline and implications for regional climate change, Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, Utah, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Holly S. Godsey ,
Donald R. Currey  and
Marjorie A. Chan
Holly S. Godsey*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Donald R. Currey
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Marjorie A. Chan
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Fax: +1 801 581 7065. E-mail addresses: hgodsey@mines.utah.edu (H.S. Godsey), machan@mines.utah.edu (M.A. Chan).
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Abstract

Lake Bonneville was a climatically sensitive, closed-basin lake that occupied the eastern Great Basin during the late Pleistocene. Ongoing efforts to refine the record of lake level history are important for deciphering climate conditions in the Bonneville basin and for facilitating correlations with regional and global records of climate change. Radiocarbon data from this and other studies suggest that the lake oscillated at or near the Provo level much longer than depicted by current models of lake level change. Radiocarbon data also suggest that the lake dropped from threshold control much more rapidly than previously supposed. These revisions to the Lake Bonneville hydrograph, coupled with independent evidence of climate change from vegetation and glacial records, have important implications for conditions in the Bonneville basin and during the Pleistocene to Holocene transition.

Keywords

Lake BonnevilleProvo shorelinePleistoceneHoloceneClimate change
Type
Scientific Communication
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , March 2005 , pp. 212 - 223
Copyright
University of Washington

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