Paleoecological Analyses of the Late Holocene Dry Period in the Northwestern Great Basin, Nevada

During the Pleistocene the Great Basin was filled by endorheic lakes that receded greatly during the Holocene. Several proxy records provide extensive evidence that the basin has gone through periods of amelioration from low precipitation followed by a return to dry conditions through the Holocene. Relative to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and middle Holocene, aside from the Medieval Climate Anomaly, study of the late Holocene has received less attention. In recent years evidence has emerged for a ca. millennial length drought termed the Late Holocene Dry Period (LHDP), between about 2800 and 1800 years ago. The LHDP has been proposed to follow a dipole climatic pattern associated with changes in precipitation linked to the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and described as a dry southwest and wet northwest in the United States. Here I present a 4000-year pollen record from northwestern Nevada, investigating the potential for the Late Holocene Dry Period to conform to the modeled dipole pattern in this part of the region. This site is located near a zone of ambiguity between wet and dry conditions in order to identify more definitively where the modeled dipole pattern is centered.

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's Degree

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Briem, Cedar

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mensing, Scott

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Csank, Adam
• Rhode, Dave

• basin
• great
• nevada
• northern
• palynology
• sediment

Statement dc:rights

• Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 United States

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11714/8250

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarwolf.unr.edu:11714/8250