TY - JOUR
T1 - Holocene lake-level trends in the Rocky Mountains, U.S.A.
AU - Shuman, Bryan
AU - Henderson, Anna K.
AU - Colman, Steven M.
AU - Stone, Jeffery R.
AU - Fritz, Sherilyn C.
AU - Stevens, Lora R.
AU - Power, Mitchell J.
AU - Whitlock, Cathy
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding to B. Shuman was provided from the NSF Earth System History Program (ATM-0402308), a University of Minnesota Graduate School McKnight Land-Grant Professorship, and an NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship. Additional funding was provided by NSF to S. Fritz, L. Stevens, and C. Whitlock (EAR-9905262; EAR-9906100), and by the USGS to S. Colman. We thank K. Westover and D. Guliver for assistance in coring, D. Weiss and D. Nichols for assistance in sub-surface data collection; K. Brady, A. Myrbo, A. Noren for technical assistance at LacCore; the Mountain Studies Institute in Silverton, Colorado, for logistical support; the USDA Forest Service in Walden, Leadville, and Durango, Colorado for access to field sites; S. Anderson and J. Toney for facilitating our study at Little Molas Lake.
PY - 2009/9
Y1 - 2009/9
N2 - The availability of water shapes life in the western United States, and much of the water in the region originates in the Rocky Mountains. Few studies, however, have explicitly examined the history of water levels in the Rocky Mountains during the Holocene. Here, we examine the past levels of three lakes near the Continental Divide in Montana and Colorado to reconstruct Holocene moisture trends. Using transects of sediment cores and sub-surface geophysical profiles from each lake, we find that mid-Holocene shorelines in the small lakes (4-110 ha) were as much as ∼10 m below the modern lake surfaces. Our results are consistent with existing evidence from other lakes and show that a wide range of settings in the region were much drier than today before 3000-2000 years ago. We also discuss evidence for millennial-scale moisture variation, including an abruptly-initiated and -terminated wet period in Colorado from 4400 to 3700 cal yr BP, and find only limited evidence for low-lake stands during the past millennium. The extent of low-water levels during the mid-Holocene, which were most severe and widespread ca 7000-4500 cal yr BP, is consistent with the extent of insolation-induced aridity in previously published regional climate model simulations. Like the simulations, the lake data provide no evidence for enhanced zonal flow during the mid-Holocene, which has been invoked to explain enhanced mid-continent aridity at the time. The data, including widespread evidence for large changes on orbital time scales and for more limited changes during the last millennium, confirm the ability of large boundary-condition changes to push western water supplies beyond the range of recent natural variability.
AB - The availability of water shapes life in the western United States, and much of the water in the region originates in the Rocky Mountains. Few studies, however, have explicitly examined the history of water levels in the Rocky Mountains during the Holocene. Here, we examine the past levels of three lakes near the Continental Divide in Montana and Colorado to reconstruct Holocene moisture trends. Using transects of sediment cores and sub-surface geophysical profiles from each lake, we find that mid-Holocene shorelines in the small lakes (4-110 ha) were as much as ∼10 m below the modern lake surfaces. Our results are consistent with existing evidence from other lakes and show that a wide range of settings in the region were much drier than today before 3000-2000 years ago. We also discuss evidence for millennial-scale moisture variation, including an abruptly-initiated and -terminated wet period in Colorado from 4400 to 3700 cal yr BP, and find only limited evidence for low-lake stands during the past millennium. The extent of low-water levels during the mid-Holocene, which were most severe and widespread ca 7000-4500 cal yr BP, is consistent with the extent of insolation-induced aridity in previously published regional climate model simulations. Like the simulations, the lake data provide no evidence for enhanced zonal flow during the mid-Holocene, which has been invoked to explain enhanced mid-continent aridity at the time. The data, including widespread evidence for large changes on orbital time scales and for more limited changes during the last millennium, confirm the ability of large boundary-condition changes to push western water supplies beyond the range of recent natural variability.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.03.003
DO - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.03.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:68349125549
SN - 0277-3791
VL - 28
SP - 1861
EP - 1879
JO - Quaternary Science Reviews
JF - Quaternary Science Reviews
IS - 19-20
ER -