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- PP43D-1235: Plant Macrofossil Radiocarbon Constraints on the Paleoecological Chronology of Laurentide Deglaciation from Budd Lake, NJ
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Board 1235‚ Hall EFG (Poster Hall)NOLA CC
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Adrian Puga, Columbia University (First Author, Presenting Author)
Dorothy Peteet, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Toward the end of the Late Pleistocene, a massive continental glacier known as the Laurentide Ice Sheet reached its maximum extent, covering most of present-day Canada and parts of the northern United States. As the climate warmed, the glacier began to retreat, re-exposing land after tens of thousands of years. Yet, the timing of deglaciation onset remains unresolved, as different dating methods have proposed ages ranging from ~27 to ~14 thousand years ago. Our study addresses this uncertainty by using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon (14C) dating on terrestrial plant macrofossils, such as seeds and leaf fragments, preserved within lake sediments from Budd Lake, NJ. Unlike bulk sediment dating or cosmogenic exposure dating (10Be), which may produce indefinite and older results, AMS targets specific organic remnants, yielding more precise ages for reconstructing a clearer radiocarbon-specific timeline of ice retreat. Our preliminary results suggest the Laurentide had retreated or begun retreat from the region by ~17 thousand years ago. Despite improved resolution, the exact pace and pattern of deglaciation remain difficult to constrain as various methods still produce mixed ages, complicating our broader understanding of ecological response and the role of ice sheets in the Earth's climate system.
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