Multiparameter Investigation of a Deep, Pre-Late Wisconsin Bog in the Central Sierra Nevada, California

Western Washington University, Bellingham WA

Investigators

Abstract

This award is for a project that involves coring and initial analysis of sediments in a deep, long-lived bog in the heart of the glaciated Sierra Nevada. The bog is unique in western North America because of its mountain location, depth, and potential to preserve sediments that date through most if not the entire last glacial cycle (~70,000-120,000 years). The location is particularly crucial, because the bog should record changes in sedimentology, slope stability, sediment geochemistry, paleomagnetism, and paleoecology in an environment that heretofore has not yielded a continuous record that dates past the last glacial maximum (~20,000 year B.P.) The investigators propose to drill through the Tioga outwash in the bog and into the underlying sediments recovering continuous core. They will then do basic analyses of the core sediments and obtain enough radiocarbon ages to demonstrate the kind of paleoclimate record that is potentially available from the bog.