Reconstructions of glacioisostatic rebound based on relative sea level in Maine and adjacent Canada do not agree well with existing geophysical models. In order to understand these discrepancies better, we investigated the lake-level history of 40-km-long Moosehead Lake in northwestern Maine. Glacioisostasy has affected the level of Moosehead Lake since deglaciation ca. 12,500 14C yr B.P. Lowstand features at the southeastern end and an abandoned outlet at the northwestern end of the lake indicate that the lake basin was tilted down to the northwest, toward the retreating ice sheet, by 0.7 m/km at 10,000 14C yr B.P. Water level then rose rapidly in the southeastern end of the lake, and the northwestern outlet was abandoned, indicating rapid relaxation of landscape tilt. Lowstand features at the northwestern end of the lake suggest that the lake basin was tilted to the southeast at ca. 8750 14C yr B.P., possibly as the result of a migrating isostatic forebulge. After 8000 14C yr B.P., water level at the southeastern end was again below present lake level and rose gradually thereafter. We found no evidence suggesting that postglacial climate change significantly affected lake level. The rebound history inferred from lake-level data is consistent with previous interpretations of nearby relative sea-level data, which indicate a significantly steeper and faster-moving ice-proximal depression and ice-distal forebulge than geophysical models predict.

An improved concept of the best analogs method is used to reconstruct the climate of the last glacial maximum from pollen data in Europe. In order to deal with the lack of perfect analogs of fossil assemblages and therefore to obtain a more accurate climate reconstruction, we used a combination of pollen types grouped according to plant phenology and present climate constraints rather than pollen percentages for each individual taxon. The distribution of pollen taxa into plant functional types (PFTs) is aimed to reflect the vegetation in terms of biomes which have a wider distribution than a species. The climatic variables are then calibrated on these PFTs using an artificial neural network technique. The use of PFTs allowed us to deal with situations where pollen assemblages have only partial modern analogs. The method is applied to the glacial steppic vegetation in Europe, using 15 pollen records. North of the Pyrenees–Alps line, the reconstructed temperatures were lower than today: −30 ± 10°C for the temperature of the coldest month ( Tc) and −12 ± 3°C for the annual mean ( Tann). South of that line, Tc and Tann anomalies were respectively, −15 ± 5°C and −10 ± 5°C. The available moisture index and annual precipitation were also lower than present: −60 ± 20% north of Mediterranean Sea, (−800 ± 100 mm for precipitation). In Italy and Greece, the available moisture was 20% lower, with a precipitation anomaly of ca. −600 ± 200 mm. Southward, the moisture index was close to that at present (±20%), and precipitation was lower (−300 ± 300 mm).

Black mats are prominent features of the late Pleistocene and Holocene stratigraphic record in the southern Great Basin. Faunal, geochemical, and sedimentological evidence shows that the black mats formed in several microenvironments related to spring discharge, ranging from wet meadows to shallow ponds. Small land snails such as Gastrocopta tappaniana and Vertigo berryi are the most common mollusk taxa present. Semiaquatic and aquatic taxa are less abundant and include Catinellids, Fossaria parva, Gyraulus parvus, and others living today in and around perennial seeps and ponds. The ostracodes Cypridopsis okeechobi and Scottia tumida, typical of seeps and low-discharge springs today, as well as other taxa typical of springs and wetlands, are common in the black mats. Several new species that lived in the saturated subsurface also are present, but lacustrine ostracodes are absent. The δ13C values of organic matter in the black mats range from −12 to −26‰, reflecting contributions of tissue from both C3 (sedges, most shrubs and trees) and C4 (saltbush, saltgrass) plants. Carbon-14 dates on the humate fraction of 55 black mats fall between 11,800 to 6300 and 2300 14C yr B.P. to modern. The total absence of mats in our sample between 6300 and 2300 14C yr B.P. likely reflects increased aridity associated with the mid-Holocene Altithermal. The oldest black mats date to 11,800–11,600 14C yr B.P., and the peak in the 14C black mat distribution falls at ∼10,000 14C yr B.P. As the formation of black mats is spring related, their abundance reflects refilling of valley aquifers starting no later than 11,800 and peaking after 11,000 14C yr B.P. Reactivation of spring-fed channels shortly before 11,200 14C yr B.P. is also apparent in the stratigraphic records from the Las Vegas and Pahrump Valleys. This age distribution suggests that black mats and related spring-fed channels in part may have formed in response to Younger Dryas (YD)-age recharge in the region. However, the inception of black mat formation precedes that of the YD by at least 40014C yr, and hydrological change is gradual, not rapid.

Periglacial conditions beyond the Wisconsin glacial limit produced wind-transverse corrugations in east-central Pennsylvania. The corrugations are low, linear ridges typically several hundred meters long, 10–30 m wide, and 3–8 m above the local slope. They are composed of matrix-supported diamictons. Depending upon landscape position, the corrugations form welts, step and risers, or ground-ice-scar ramparts. The average direction normal to the corrugations is clustered at 118°/298°, similar to the late Wisconsin or early Holocene wind direction of 284° measured from a nearby fossil dune field. But the corrugations were neither eroded nor deposited by wind. Rather, they record nivation beside snow that accumulated in wind-transverse patterns. Their wide distribution implies that the region was treeless during the late Wisconsin maximum. Present discontinuities in these and other periglacial features suggest wasting of ice-rich fill in upland valleys, with consequent widening of stream channels and fan growth, at the end of periglacial time.

A sediment core recovered from Lost Park (39°17′30″N, 105°32′30″W; elevation 3079 m) provides palynological evidence for postglacial vegetational and environmental change in the central Front Range of Colorado. Pine–spruce woodland was the dominant vegetation type throughout the ∼12,000-yr-long record. Nonarboreal taxa, however, showed substantial changes. From 11,800 to 9100 14C yr B.P., high Artemisia levels suggest steppe vegetation indicative of a climate cooler than that at present with an annual precipitation regime dominated by winter moisture. The pollen spectra of this interval resemble modern spectra at two sites within Colorado and Wyoming; comparisons of modern climatic data suggest that Lost Park may have experienced winter temperatures 3° to 3.5°C colder than those at present and monthly winter precipitation levels 3.5 cm higher than those at present during this late-glacial time. Lower Artemisia, coupled with increases in Poaceae pollen, suggest a shift to warmer conditions dominated by summer (monsoon) precipitation around 9100 14C yr B.P. Increased charcoal occurrences between ∼6000 and ∼4000 14C yr B.P. may suggest the onset of drier summer conditions that would be expected with a waning summer monsoon circulation at that time. Since 180014C yr B.P., a resurgence in Artemisia pollen suggests a return to relatively cool and/or dry conditions similar to the present climate.

Environmental conditions of the lowland tropical forests during the last glacial maximum (LGM) between ca 20,000 and 18,000 14C yr B.P., are reevaluated in terms of dating control and lithology analyzed in seven pollen records from South America. The reevaluation shows that probably in none of the published records are LGM sediments present or abundant. This conclusion is based on the occurrence of abrupt lithologic changes coupled with changes in sedimentation rate interpolated from radiocarbon dates. These findings suggest that the LGM was represented probably by a hiatus of several thousand years, indicative of drier climates than before or after.

Palynological analyses performed on cores from the Norwegian Channel (Troll 8903) led to reconstruction of the late-glacial variations in sea-surface conditions using dinoflagellate cyst data and permitted direct correlation with the vegetation history of northwestern Europe derived from pollen assemblages. By ∼15,000 yr B.P., ice rapidly receded from the Norwegian shelf and relatively warm summer conditions prevailed in surface waters. A first late-glacial cooling marked by extensive seasonal sea–ice cover is dated at ca. 13,600–13,000 14C yr B.P., which coincides with the Oldest Dryas interval. During the Bølling–Allerød interval, a rise in sea-surface temperature both in February (up to 3°C) and August (up to 15°C) led to the establishment of ice-free conditions in the northern North Sea, while pollen data reveal a densification of the vegetation cover. The beginning of the Younger Dryas interval is marked by an increase in nonarboreal pollen input indicative of the opening of the forest vegetation cover, concomitant with a cooling of surface waters during winter and development of sea–ice cover. However, sea-surface conditions remained relatively warm in summer until about 10,300 yr B.P., when extremely cold conditions and extensive sea–ice cover developed (up to 7 months/yr). Improving conditions are recorded in surface waters by ∼10,100 yr B.P., a few hundred years before the development of forest cover onshore, as shown by the pollen record. Such a discrepancy between marine and terrestrial indicators at the end of Younger Dryas time suggests a delayed response of the vegetation to regional climate warming.

Marine records from the Reykjanes Ridge indicate ice sheet variations and abrupt climate changes. One of these records, ice-rafted detritus (IRD), serves as a proxy for iceberg discharges that probably indicates ice sheet fluctuations. The IRD records suggest that iceberg discharge 68,000–10,000 yr B.P. happened more frequently than the 7000- to 10,000-yr spacing of the Heinrich events. An IRD peak 67,000 to 63,000 yr B.P. further suggests that the Middle Weichselian glaciation started about 12,000 yr earlier in the North Atlantic than in the Norwegian Sea. Several later IRD events, in contrast, correlate with Norwegian Sea IRD-rich layers and imply coeval ice sheet advances in the North Atlantic and the Norwegian Sea. Coccoliths in a core from the Reykjanes Ridge show distinct peaks in species that record occasional inflow of warm surface water during the last glaciation, as previously reported from the eastern Labrador Sea. High abundances of coccoliths, together with a decrease of Neogloboquadrina pachyderma sin. and relatively low δ18O values, imply enhanced advection of the North Atlantic Current 69,000–67,000 yr B.P., 56,000–54,000 yr B.P., 35,000–33,000 yr B.P., and 26,000–23,000 yr B.P. This advection provided a regional moisture source for extension of ice sheets onto the shelf. In contrast, most of the IRD events are characterized by cold polar surface water masses indicating rapid variations in ocean surface conditions.

Previously undescribed pollen, plant macrofossils, molluscs, and ostracodes were recovered from a 2.5-m-thick glaciolacustrine unit of silty sand and clay at Valders, Wisconsin. The interstadial sediment was deposited about 12,200 14C yr B.P. after retreat of the Green Bay lobe that deposited diamicton of the Horicon Formation, and before advance of the Lake Michigan lobe that deposited the red-brown diamicton of the Valders Member of the Kewaunee Formation. Fluctuations of abundance of Candona subtriangulata, Cytherissa lacustris, and three other species define four ostracode biozones in the lower 1.7 m, suggesting an open lake environment that oscillated in depth and proximity to glacial ice. Pollen is dominated by Picea and Artemisia, but the low percentages of many other types of long-distance origin suggest that the terrestrial vegetation was open and far from the forest border. The upper part of the sediment, a massive sand deposited in either a shallow pond or a sluggish stream, contains a local concentration of plant macrofossils. The interpretation of a cold open environment is supported by the plant macrofossils of more than 20 species, dominated by those of open mineral soils ( Arenaria rubella, Cerastium alpinum type, Silene acaulis, Sibbaldia procumbens, Dryas integrifolia, Vaccinium uliginosum var. alpinum, Armeria maritima, etc.) that in North America occur largely in the tundra and open tundra–forest ecotone of northern Canada. Ice-wedge casts occur in the sand.