Approximately 70 km of new decimeter-resolution seismic reflection profile data from Owasco Lake, New York define a middle Holocene (∼4600 14C yr B.P.) erosion surface in the north end of the lake at water depths as great as 26 m. Beneath the lake, post-glacial sediments are up to 9 m thick and represent about 10% of the total sediment fill. Early to middle Holocene sediments, ∼6 m thick, contain biogenic gas at the south end of the basin and a large (4 km × 300 m × 15 m) subaqueous slide deposit along the east-central portion of the lake. Late Holocene sediments are thinner or absent, particularly at the north end of the lake. The middle Holocene erosion surface may have been produced by a drop in lake level. Alternatively, it may represent a change in climate during the transition between the relatively warm Holocene hypsithermal and cool neoglacial. At this time (∼4600 14C yr B.P.) circulation in Owasco Lake appears to have evolved from sluggish to active. The increased circulation, which persists today, probably resulted from atmospheric cold fronts with strong southwesterly winds that piled up water at the north end of the lake. The increased water circulation may have been ultimately driven by decreasing insolation, which produced an increased pole-to-equator thermal gradient and thus, stronger global winds that began at the transition between the hypsithermal and neoglacial.

New pollen data from a core at Lagoa do Caçó, Maranhão state, Brazil (2°58′S 43°25′W; 120 m elevation), show higher frequencies of Podocarpus at the end of the Pleistocene than today. The increase in Podocarpus, which follows the successive increase of various pioneer species such as Didymopanax, Melastomataceae/Combretaceae, and Cecropia, implies a progressive late-glacial increase of moist and cool climatic conditions. A comparable increase in Podocarpus is found in other lowland records in Amazonia. A review of published pollen data from Amazonia suggests that the moisture source was from the southeast. By contrast, present-day moisture comes from the tropical Atlantic and from the Amazon basin, with its convective precipitation. The likely cause for the southeastern moisture source between ca. 15,000 and 14,500 cal yr B.P. was enhanced polar (Antarctic) advection that reached low latitudes and maintained year-round the meteorological equator in its austral-winter position at northern latitudes or reduced drastically its southward summer displacement. This hypothesis is consistent with marine and ice core records.

Late Pleistocene glaciation of the Australian mainland was restricted to a small area of the southeastern highlands. Geomorphic mapping of the area and exposure dating using the in situ produced cosmogenic isotope 10Be provides evidence for at least two distinct glaciations. The Early Kosciuszko glaciation consisted of a single glacier advance before 59,300 ± 5400 years ago (Snowy River Advance). The Late Kosciuszko glaciation comprised three glacier advances 32,000 ± 2500 (Headley Tarn Advance), 19,100 ± 1600 (Blue Lake Advance), and 16,800 ± 1400 years ago (Mt. Twynam Advance). The Early Kosciuszko glaciation was the most extensive and the Late Kosciuszko advances were progressively less extensive. These periods of glaciation in the highlands correspond to episodes of periglacial activity and peaks in lake levels and river discharge at lower elevations in southeastern Australia. Glacier advances on the Kosciuszko Massif correlate with advances in Tasmania, South America, and New Zealand and are broadly representative of hemispheric climate changes during the last glacial cycle.

Postglacial climatic conditions were inferred from cores taken from Big Lake in southern British Columbia. Low concentrations of nonarboreal pollen and pigments near the base of the core suggest that initial conditions were cool. Increases in both aquatic and terrestrial production suggest warmer and moister conditions until ∼8500 cal yr B.P. Hyposaline diatom assemblages, increases in nonarboreal pollen, and increased concentrations of pigments suggest the onset of arid conditions from ∼8500 to ∼7500 cal yr B.P. Slightly less arid conditions are inferred from ∼7500 until ∼6660 cal yr B.P. based on the diatoms, small increases and greater variability in biogenic silica and pigments, and higher percentages of arboreal pollen. At ∼6600 cal yr B.P., changes in diatoms, pigments, biogenic silica, and organic matter suggest that Big Lake became fresh, deep, and eutrophic until ∼3600 cal yr B.P., when water levels and nutrients decreased slightly. Our paleoclimatic inferences are similar to pollen-based studies until ∼6600 cal yr B.P. However, unlike these studies, our multiple lines of evidence from Big Lake imply large changes in effective moisture since 6000 cal yr B.P.

A 467-cm-long core from the inner shelf of the eastern Laptev Sea provides a depositional history since 9400 cal yr. B.P. The history involves temporal changes in the fluvial runoff as well as postglacial sea-level rise and southward retreat of the coastline. Although the core contains marine fossils back to 8900 cal yr B.P., abundant plant debris in a sandy facies low in the core shows that a river influenced the study site until ∼8100 cal yr B.P. As sea level rose and the distance to the coast increased, this riverine influence diminished gradually and the sediment type changed, by 7400 cal yr B.P., from sandy silt to clayey silt. Although total sediment input decreased in a step-like fashion from 7600 to 4000 cal yr B.P., this interval had the highest average sedimentation rates and the greatest fluxes in most sedimentary components. While this maximum probably resulted from middle Holocene climate warming, the low input of sand to the site after 7400 cal yr B.P. probably resulted from further southward retreat of the coastline and river mouth. Since about 4000 cal yr B.P., total sediment flux has remained rather constant in this part of the Laptev Sea shelf due to a gradual stabilization of the depositional regime after completion of the Holocene sea-level rise.

Pollen and algae from Owens Lake in eastern California provide evidence for a series of climatic oscillations late in the last glaciation. Juniper woodland, which dominated the Owens Valley from 16,200 to 15,500 cal yr B.P., suggests much wetter conditions than today. Although still wetter and cooler than today, the area then became fairly warm and dry, with woodland being replaced by shrubs (mainly sagebrush) from 15,500 to 13,100 cal yr B.P. Next, Chenopodiaceae (shadscale) increased, woody species declined, and lake levels fell—all evidence for a brief (ca. 100–200 yr) drought about 13,000 cal yr B.P. The climate continued to oscillate between wet and dry from 13,000 to 11,000 cal yr B.P. After 11,000 cal yr B.P., low lake levels and the increased dominance of desert shrubs indicate the beginning of warm, dry Holocene conditions. The region's climate was unstable during the Younger Dryas but uncertainities in dating prevent identification of the Younger Dryas interval in the Owens Lake record. Comparison of the Owens Lake record with studies in the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin suggest that the climate was generally wetter between 13,000 and 11,000 cal yr B.P., with warmer summers, although no consistent pattern of climate change emerges.

An 18-m-high coastal bluff at Togiak Bay (northwestern Bristol Bay, southwestern Alaska) exposes marine, lacustrine, fluvial, glacial, volcanic, and organic deposits that record the ∼50,000-year-long transition from the peak of the last interglaciation to the early Wisconsin glaciation. The base of the section is dominated by stratified sand and silt extending up to 4.3 m above sea level; marine diatoms are present, and pollen assemblages are characterized by relatively high percentages of Picea, Alnus, and Betula and low percentages of Poaceae and Cyperaceae. The marine sediment was probably deposited during the peak of marine oxygen-isotope stage (OIS) 5e. An infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) age of 151,000±13,000 yr from near the base of the exposure is permissive of this correlation. The marine sand and silt are overlain by 0.8 m of peaty silt with diatoms that record a transition from marine to lacustrine conditions. During this interval, Poaceae and Cyperaceae dominate the pollen assemblages, and Picea and shrubs are nearly absent, suggesting that herb tundra occupied the landscape. This interval probably encompasses OIS 5d on the basis of the herb tundra and an IRSL age of 119,000±10,000 yr from 60 cm below the marine/lacustrine transition. The organic mud is overlain by 3.1 m of stratified sand and organic silt that apparently record shallowing of the lake; reappearance of spruce and shrubs (=OIS 5c?); and subsequent deepening of the lake (=OIS 5b?); followed by aggradation of a floodplain (=OIS 5a?), which was dry at the time basaltic lava buried the site. Thermoluminescence analyses on lava-baked sediment indicate that the eruption occurred 70,000±10,000 yr ago. Sometime thereafter, but prior to 53,600 14C yr B.P. an outlet of the Ahklun Mountains ice cap advanced over the site and deposited ∼7 m of bouldery ice-contact drift. The sedimentary sequence contains at least four tephra beds. Major- and trace-element chemistry provide a basis for correlating two of the tephras with tephra beds at nearby sites. The tephras, luminescence ages, and correlations with marine isotope stages provide the geochronological control to place the Togiak Bay section into a global context. The site serves as an important new reference section for late Pleistocene paleoenvironmental change in eastern Beringia.

Analysis of diatoms, pollen, and the carbon-isotopic composition of a sediment core from a brackish marsh in the northern part of the San Francisco Estuary has provided a paleosalinity record that covers the past 3000 yr. Changes in marsh composition and diatom frequencies are assumed to represent variations in freshwater inflow to the estuary. Three periods of relatively high salinity (low freshwater inflow) are indicated, 3000 to 2500 cal yr B.P., 1700 to 730 cal yr B.P., and ca. A.D. 1930 to the present. The most recent period of high salinity is primarily due to upstream storage and water diversion within the Sacramento–San Joaquin watershed, although drought may also have been a factor. The two earlier high-salinity periods are likely the result of reduced precipitation. Low salinity (high freshwater flow) is indicated for the period 750 cal yr B.P. to A.D. 1930.

The timing and magnitude of sea-surface temperature (SST) changes in the tropical southern South China Sea (SCS) during the last 16,500 years have been reconstructed on a high-resolution, 14C-dated sediment core using three different foraminiferal transfer functions (SIMMAX28, RAM, FP-12E) and geochemical (Uk′37) SST estimates. In agreement with CLIMAP reconstructions, both the FP-12E and the Uk′37 SST estimates show an average late glacial–interglacial SST difference of 2.0°C, whereas the RAM and SIMMAX28 foraminiferal transfer functions show only a minor (0.6°C) or no consistent late glacial–interglacial SST change, respectively. Both the Uk′37 and the FP-12E SST estimates, as well as the planktonic foraminiferal δ18O values, indicate an abrupt warming (ca. 1°C in <200 yr) at the end of the last glaciation, synchronous (within dating uncertainties) with the Bølling transition as recorded in the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) ice core, whereas the RAM-derived deglacial SST increase appears to lag during this event by ca. 500 yr. The similarity in abruptness and timing of the warming associated with the Bølling transition in Greenland and the southern SCS suggest a true synchrony of the Northern Hemisphere warming at the end of the last glaciation. In contrast to the foraminiferal transfer function estimates that do not indicate any consistent cooling associated with the Younger Dryas (YD) climate event in the tropical SCS, the Uk′37 SST estimates show a cooling of ca. 0.2–0.6°C compared to the Bølling–Allerød period. These Uk′37 SST estimates from the southern SCS argue in favor of a Northern Hemisphere-wide, synchronous cooling during the YD period.

Holocene paleosea-level data for Fiji, represented by 77 dates and emergence magnitudes, are presented, screened, and adjusted. Most data are from coral microatolls, potentially the most precise paleosea-level indicators in this region. Holocene sea-level changes are reconstructed for five areas within Fiji known to have had different late Quaternary tectonic histories. Resulting analysis suggests that postglacial sea level in Fiji reached its present level more than 6900 14C yr B.P. It also suggests either that a single maximum 5650–3200 14C yr B.P. (perhaps +2.19 m but more likely +1.35–1.50 m) occurred or that two maxima occurred 6100–4550 14C yr B.P. (+0.75–1.85 m) and 3590–2800 14C yr B.P. (+0.90–2.46 m). Broad agreement exists between these empirical sea-level reconstructions and those derived theoretically using the ICE-4G model (predicted maximum ∼4000 14C yr B.P.; ∼+2.1 m). This suggests that both methods of reconstructing Holocene sea-level changes are valid, as are the assumptions underpinning the ICE-4G model. The most important of these, that eustatic sea level had effectively stopped rising by late middle-Holocene time (5000–4000 yr B.P.), is confirmed by observations from Fiji.

The advancing glaciers of the last glacial maximum either eroded or deeply buried older sediments in the Swiss Alpine Foreland. However, part of the Swiss Plateau was not covered by ice and is therefore an excellent area for investigating climate and environmental change during the Upper Pleistocene. Repeated fluvial sequences can be studied in several pits along the Luthern Valley. The chronological framework is based on lithostratigraphy, pollen analysis, U/Th dating, and recently, heavy mineral analysis and luminescence dating. The oldest unit, the Untere Zeller Schotter braided river deposit, represents cold climate conditions and presumably a glaciation prior to the Eemian Interglaciation. The last interglacial period and the very beginning of the last glacial cycle is represented by the Mittlere Zeller Schotter, sediments of a meandering fluvial system. Younger braided river sediments, the Obere Zeller Schotter, seem to correlate with the cold climate of oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 4. Weathering of the top of the Obere Zeller Schotter is likely to represent the OIS 3. The advancing Reuss glacier caused erosion of the recent Luthern Valley, cutting into older sediments, with local loess accumulation during the last glacial maximum as indicated by cover sediments on top of the fluvial sequence.

Studies of some 70 bore holes around ancient Pompeii, on the southwestern slope of the Somma-Vesuvius volcano, allow the reconstruction of Holocene environments earlier than the A.D. 79 eruption. This eruption produced about 10 km3 of pyroclastic material that buried the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae and promoted a shoreline progradation of 1 km. The Sarno coastal plain, in a post-Miocene sedimentary basin, has been affected by Somma-Vesuvius volcanic activity since the late Pleistocene. At the Holocene transgressive maximum, the sea reached an area east of ancient Pompeii and formed a beach ridge (Messigno, 5600 and 4500 14C yr B.P.) more than 2 km inland from the present shore. Progradation of the plain due to high volcanic supply during the following highstand resulted in a new beach ridge (Bottaro-Pioppaino, 3600 14C yr B.P.) 0.5 km seaward of the Messigno ridge. Ancient Pompeii was built as the shoreline continued to prograde toward its present position. Deposits of the A.D. 79 eruption blanketed the natural levees of the Sarno River, marshes near the city and on the Sarno's floodplain, the morphological highs of Messigno and Bottaro-Pioppaino beach ridges, and the seashore. That shore was probably 1 km landward of the present one.

Foraminifera from two cores off eastern Vietnam and the northwestern Philippines, where modern summer and winter monsoon-driven upwelling occurs in the South China Sea, respectively, were analyzed to evaluate the changes in paleoproductivity and upper water structure over the last 220,000 yr. We observed enhanced organic carbon flux and a shoaled thermocline when upwelling intensified off eastern Vietnam during interglacial ages and off the northwestern Philippines during glacial ages. This indicates that the East Asian summer monsoon increased while the winter monsoon decreased during interglacial ages. Particularly, the upwelling reached a maximum off eastern Vietnam during late marine isotopic stage (MIS) 5 and off the northwestern Philippines during MIS 2, implying that the summer monsoon decreased gradually since MIS 5 while the winter monsoon displayed an opposite trend. The variations in upwelling proxies exhibit a distinct cyclicity with frequencies near 41,000 yr and 23,000 yr off eastern Vietnam, in contrast to a strong frequency peak near 100,000 yr off the northwestern Philippines. We suggest that the East Asian summer monsoon has been forced by changes in solar insolation associated with precession and obliquity, while ice-volume forcing is probably a primary factor in determining the strength and timing of the East Asian winter monsoon but with less important insolation forcing.

The fossil remains of 43 bowhead whales were mapped on the raised beaches of western Wollaston Peninsula, Victoria Island, Canadian Arctic, near the historic summer range limit of the Bering Sea stock in the Beaufort Sea. The elevations and radiocarbon ages of the remains demonstrate that the bowhead ranged commonly into the region following the submergence of Bering Strait at ca. 10,000 14C yr B.P. until ca. 8500 14C yr B.P. During the same interval, bowheads ranged widely from the Beaufort Sea to Baffin Bay. Subsequently, no whales reached Wollaston Peninsula until ca. 1500 14C yr B.P. Late Holocene populations evidently were small, or occupations were brief, in comparison to those of the early Holocene. Although the late Holocene recurrence may relate to the expansion of pioneering Thule whalers eastward from Alaska, there are few Thule sites and limited evidence of Thule whaling in the area surveyed to support this suggestion.

Paleohydrological changes during the late Holocene are inferred from humification, testate amoebae, and pollen evidence from three blanket peat profiles in northwest Scotland. Replicate peat humification records from the Traligill basin share the same patterns of change for a 600-yr period of overlap between 1800 and 2400 cal yr B.P. The shared patterns, inferred from samples with a resolution of 5–13 yr, represent basinwide hydrological changes. In a nearby, but hydrologically separate, area with caves beneath peat, the luminescence emission wavelength measured in two speleothem samples correlated with the humification record in the overlying peat. This correlation implies that speleothem luminescence emission wavelength depends primarily on decay rates in the soils from which drip waters are derived, as long as there is no major change in soil or vegetation. The peat and speleothem records from the cave site further correlate with the peat records from the Traligill basin. Taken together, the records thus represent a regional climatic signal. Peaks in surface wetness replicated in two or more records occur at ca. 2300, 2090, 2030, 1820, 1600, and 1440 cal yr B.P. Further peaks occur at 800, 570, and 115 cal yr B.P. in the humification and stalagmite records that extend to the present day. Correlative changes have been observed, not only in other peat records from Scotland but also in ice accumulation at GISP2. These further correlations imply that precipitation regimes in Scotland and Greenland were in phase during the late Holocene.

Knowledge of sea-level change in the southern Baltic Sea region is important for understanding the variations in late Pleistocene and Holocene sea-level change across northern Europe. These variations are a consequence of the response of the Earth's crust to the deglaciation of Fennoscandia and of the water added to the oceans from the melting of all Pleistocene ice sheets. The sedimentological and geochemical composition of five sediment cores from the lagoonal Oder Estuary offers new observational evidence for sea-level change and coastal development in the southern Baltic Sea region. The combined use of several geochemical proxies (organic carbon, nitrogen, calcium carbonate and biogenic opal contents, Corg/S and Corg/N ratios, δ13C values of organic matter, and δ15N values) is a new approach for the study area. The chemical evidence of this multiproxy approach allows clear identification of several stages in the development of the lagoonal environment: postglacial lake stages with sandy sedimentation during the Older Dryas and the Allerød stades, lacustrine phases with high autochthonous productivity during the Atlantic stade, terrestrial stages with peat formation at the beginning of the Subboreal stade, sedimentation as a result of marine transgression, and brackish sedimentation after the formation of sand spits and barrier islands during the Subatlantic stade. The stages are the result of regional sea-level change owing to complex shoreline development. They support the tentative sea-level curve proposed nearly 20 years ago for the region. In addition, changes in Oder River input in response to climate conditions is monitored. Whereas high terrigenous input of organic matter from the Oder River occurred during periods of humid climate during the Allerød, Atlantic, and Subatlantic stades, Oder River discharge decreased with drier and cooler climate conditions during the Subboreal stade. Furthermore, the geochemical evidence points to local anomalies such as the significance of river input and additional sulfate supply into the Oder lagoon for the composition of the sediments. Overall, the results provide a framework for future studies, which would allow for a more detailed comparison with other, similar environments.

Microscopic charcoal preserved in lake and swamp sediments from 10 sites in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and from 5 sites in Central and South America have been used to reconstruct long-term fire histories for these two regions. Comparison of these records demonstrates that fire is promoted during periods of rapid climate change and high climate variability, regardless of the presence or absence of humans. Broad synchrony of changes in corrected charcoal values in each region supports an atmospheric transmission of the climate signal via the dominant large-scale atmospheric circulation systems (Walker Circulation) that appears to have persisted since 16,000 cal yr B.P. Altered climate boundary conditions under the influence of changing El Niño-related variability, insolation, sea level, and sea surface temperature all influenced the strength of this connection. Correlation of biomass burning records between the regions tends to increase in the Holocene. The main period of inverse correlation occurs during the Younger Dryas Stade, when extratropical climate most affected the tropics. The strongest correlation between the two regions postdates 5000 cal yr B.P., when El Niño-related variability intensified. Fluctuations in tropical biomass burning are at least partly controlled by orbital forcing (precession), although extratropical climate influences and human activity are also important.

Using 10Be and 26Al measured in sediment and bedrock, we quantify rates of upland erosion and sediment supply to a small basin in northwestern New Mexico. This and many other similar basins in the southwestern United States have been affected by cycles of arroyo incision and backfilling several times in the past few millennia. The sediment generation (275 ± 65 g m−2 yr−1) and bedrock equivalent lowering rates (102 ± 24 m myr−1) we determine are sufficient to support at least three arroyo cycles in the past 3,000 years, consistent with rates calculated from a physical sediment budget within the basin and regional rates determined using other techniques. Nuclide concentrations measured in different sediment sources and reservoirs suggest that the arroyo is a good spatial and temporal integrator of sediment and associated nuclide concentrations from throughout the basin, that the basin is in steady-state, and that nuclide concentration is independent of sediment grain size. Differences between nuclide concentrations measured in sediment sources and reservoirs reflect sediment residence times and indicate that subcolluvial bedrock weathering on hillslopes supplies more sediment to the basin than erosion of exposed bedrock.

Early Holocene sediments from a continental Antarctic lake (Ace Lake, Vestfold Hills, East Antarctica) contained abundant fossil rotifers of the genus Notholca. The fossil is similar to specimens of Notholca sp. present in modern-day Ace Lake and other fresh and brackish lakes of the Vestfold Hills. Cyanobacteria and protists (chrysophyte cysts, dinoflagellate cysts, and rhizopod tests) were also recovered from the core samples. These sediments were deposited early in the freshwater phase of Ace Lake, soon after deglaciation of the area. The occurrence of this trophically diverse assemblage of organisms at an early stage in the evolution of the lake suggests either that they were part of an endemic Antarctic flora and fauna which pre-dated the last glacial maximum and survived in glacial refugia or that efficient intercontinental dispersal had occurred.

Minimum radiocarbon ages of marine Pleistocene molluscs from Uruguay range from 29,500±600 to 35,500±1900 14C yr B.P. Because knowledge of the marine Quaternary stratigraphy of Uruguay remains inadequate, no attempt is made to correlate between these deposits and recognized lithostratigraphic units. Analysis of the temperature and salinity ranges of the various molluscs suggests the establishment of a poly-euhaline fauna that inhabited waters warmer than present at the same latitude. This is supported by a northward retreat in the recent distribution of Chrysallida cf. C. gemmulosa, Nioche subrostrata, and probably Anomalocardia brasiliana. These marine Pleistocene deposits can probably be correlated with the last interglaciation (oxygen-isotopic substage 5e). At that time the fluvial-marine front of the Rio de la Plata was displaced much further northwestward than previously supposed. Chrysallida cf. C. gemmulosa and Limaria sp. are recorded in Uruguayan Quaternary deposits for the first time.