INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PALYNOLOGY

Abstracts

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
TUCSON, ARIZONA, U.S.A.
APRIL 23 TO 27, 1962

Oberlin College, Ohio                                                   KATHRYN E. CLISBY

AN INPERCEPTIBLE PLIO-PLEISTOCENE BOUNDARY

Continuing pollen analyses of deep cores (2000') from the San Agustin Plains, New Mexico, fail to demonstrate a definite Plio-Pleistocene boundary. Below 450' oscillating cool-moist climatic intervals are separated by much longer warm-dry intervals. The spans of these drying periods increase with depth.

Assuming that pluvials in the Southwest reflect periods of continental glaciation, the deeper sediments in the San Agustin Plains corroborate Emiliani's paleotemperature curves of Plio-Pleistocene age from Castella, Calabria. Preceeding major continental Pleistocene glaciation, Emiliani postulates from his temperature curves that important mountain glaciations may have occurred in the late Pliocene and certainly occurred in the Early Pleistocene. It is hoped that by April our close interval analysis of S.A.P. will reach 800-900 feet.


(Emiliani C., Mayeda T., Selli R. 1961. Paleotemperature analysis of the Plio-Pleistocene section at le Castella, Calabria, southern Italy. Geological Society of America Bulletin 72:679–688.)