Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T10:36:37.469Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Timing and Extent of Late Quaternary Paleolakes in the Trans-Pecos Closed Basin, West Texas and South-Central New Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David E. Wilkins  and
Donald R. Currey
David E. Wilkins
Affiliation:
Limneotectonics Laboratory, Department of Geography, University of Utah, 270 Orson Spencer Hall, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84112
Donald R. Currey
Affiliation:
Limneotectonics Laboratory, Department of Geography, University of Utah, 270 Orson Spencer Hall, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84112
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Trans-Pecos Closed Basin is a hydrographically closed region covering 20,000 km2centered on Salt Basin, 160 km east of El Paso, Texas. Geomorphic and limnetic evidence have been used to identify four major highstands for Lake King during the last glacial maximum (LGM). Additional geomorphic features from a second, recently identified, paleolake, Lake Sacramento, have been found in the Beargrass subbasin, a nested subbasin approximately 75 km northwest of Salt Basin. Radiocarbon ages of the organic material in Lake King sediments date four abrupt climate changes and rapid lacustrine transgressions during the LGM with a quasi-periodicity of 2000 yr. Geomorphic evidence in the Beargrass subbasin identifies lake cycles contemporaneous with those in Lake King. The dates for these transgressions correlate with the dates of freshening events identified by researchers in paleolake basins elsewhere in New Mexico. The quasi-periodicity of the events approximates that of Dansgaard–Oeschger events identified from Greenland ice cores. The contemporaneity of the Trans-Pecos transgressions with transgressive events in other basins in the region suggests that paleolakes in the region were in phase with respect to abrupt climate changes during the latter stages of the LGM.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , May 1997 , pp. 306 - 315
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

Aksu, A. E., Yasar, D., Mudie, P. J., 1995, Paleoclimatic and paleooceanographic conditions leading to development of sapropel layer S1 in the Aegean Sea, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 116, 71–101.Google Scholar
Allen, B. D., 1991, Effect of climatic change on Estancia Valley, New Mexico: Sedimentation and landscape evolution in a closed-drainage basin, Field Guide to Geologic Excursions in New Mexico and Adjacent Areas of Texas and Colorado. Google Scholar
Allen, B. D., Anderson, R. Y., 1993, Evidence from western North America for rapid shifts in climate during the last Glacial Maximum, Science, 260, 1920–1923.Google Scholar
Benson, L. V., Currey, D. R., Rorn, R. I., Lajoie, K. R., Oviatt, C. G., Robinson, S. W., Smith, G. I., Stine, S., 1990, Chronology of expansion and contraction of four Great Basin lake systems during the past 35,000 years, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 78, 241–286.Google Scholar
Bjorklund, L. J., 1957, Reconnaissance of Ground-Water Conditions in the Crow Flats Area, Otero County, New Mexico. Google Scholar
Bond, G., Broecker, W., Johnsen, S., McManus, J., Labeyrle, L., Jouzel, J., Bonanl, G., 1993, Correlations between climate records from North Atlantic sediments and Greenland ice, Nature, 365, 143–147.Google Scholar
Boyd, F. M., Kreitler, C. W., 1986, Hydrogeology of a Gypsum Playa, Northern Salt Basin, Texas. Google Scholar
Science, 241, 1988, 1043–1052.Google Scholar
Currey, D. R., 1991, Hemiarid Lake Basins: Hydrographic and Geomorphic Patterns.Google Scholar
Dansgaard, W., 1985, Greenland ice core studies, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 50, 185–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enzel, Y., Brown, W. J., Anderson, R. Y., McFadden, L. D., Wells, S. G., 1992, Short-duration Holocene lakes in the Mojave River drainage basin, Southern California, Quaternary Research, 38, 60–73.Google Scholar
Fenneman, N. M., 1931, Physiography of Western United States, McGraw-Hill, New York. Google Scholar
Friedman, G. M., 1966, Occurrence and origin of Quaternary Dolomite of Salt Flat, west Texas, Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 36, 263–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardie, L. A., Smoot, J. P., Eugster, H. P., 1978, Saline lakes and their deposits: A sedimentological approach, Special Publications of the International Association of Sedimentologists, 2, 7–41.Google Scholar
Hawley, J. W., 1993, Geomorphic Setting and Late Quaternary History of Pluvial-Lake Basins in the Southern New Mexico Region .Google Scholar
Hussain, M., Warren, , , David, Rohr, , andJohn, K. M., 1988, Depositional Environments and Facies in a Quaternary Continental Sabkha, West Texas, 177, 186.Google Scholar
King, P. B., 1948, Geology of the Southern Guadalupe Mountains, Texas. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohler, M. A., Nordenson, T. J., Baker, D. R., 1959, Evaporation Maps for the United States.Google Scholar
Langbein, W. B., 1949, Annual Runoff in the United States.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, R. R., 1981, Coevolution of deserts and pupfishes (genusCyprinodon , Naiman, R. J., Soltz David, L., Fishes in North American Deserts, Wiley, New York, 39–94.Google Scholar
Mock, C. J., Bartlein, P. J., 1995, Spatial variability of late-Quaternary paleoclimates in the western United States, Quaternary Research, 44, 425–433.Google Scholar
Muehlberger, W. R., Belcher, R. C., Goetz, L. K., 1978, Quaternary faulting in Trans-Pecos Texas, Geology, 6, 337–340.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, F. M., Campbell, A. R., Kruger, C., Johnson, P., Roberts, R., Keyes, E., 1992, A Reconstruction of the Water Balance in Western United States Lake Basins to Climatic Change.Google Scholar
Phillips, F. M., Campbell, A. R., Smith, G. I., Bischoff, J. L., 1994, Interstadial climatic cycles: A link between western North America and Greenland?, Geology, 22, 1115–1118.Google Scholar
Reilinger, R., Brown, L., Powers, D., 1980, New evidence for tectonic uplift in the Diablo Plateau region, west Texas, Geophysical Research Letters, 7, 181–184.Google Scholar
Sack, D., 1995, The shoreline preservation index as a relative-age dating tool for late Pleistocene shorelines: An example from the Bonneville Basin, U. S. A, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 20, 363–377.Google Scholar
Tuan, Y. F., Everard, C. E., Widdison, J. G., Bennett, I., 1973, The Climate of New Mexico.Google Scholar
Van Devender, T. R., Betancourt, J., Wimberly, M., 1984, Biogeographic implications of a packrat midden sequence from the Sacramento Mountains, south-central New Mexico, Quaternary Research, 22, 344–360.Google Scholar
Van Devender, T. R., Spaulding, W. G., Phillips, A. M. I., 1979, Late Pleistocene plant communities in the Guadalupe Mountains, Culberson County, Texas, Genoways, H.H., Baker, R.J., Biological Investigations in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas.Google Scholar
Warren, J. K., 1989, Evaporite Sedimentology: Importance in Hydrocarbon Accumulation, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs. Google Scholar
Waters, M. R., 1989, Late Quaternary lacustrine history and paleoclimatic significance of pluvial Lake Cochise, southeastern Arizona, Quaternary Research, 32, 1–11.Google Scholar
Wells, P. V., 1978, An equable glaciopluvial in the West: Pleniglacial evidence of increased precipitation on a gradient from the Great Basin to the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, Quaternary Research, 12, 311–325.Google Scholar
Williams, D. F., Thunell, R. C., Kennett, J. P., 1978, Periodic freshwater flooding and stagnation of the eastern Mediterranean Sea during the late Quaternary, Science, 201, 252–254.Google Scholar