CAROLINA BAYS AND INLAND DUNES OF THE SOUTHERN ATLANTIC COASTAL PLAIN YIELD NEW EVIDENCE FOR REGIONAL PALEOCLIMATE

New optically stimulated luminescence ages from eolian landforms in the Coastal Plain of South Carolina document multiple episodes of inland dune and Carolina bay development. Ages from eolian sand rims on the southeast edges of Carolina bay wetlands indicate conditions were suitable for rim development—i.e., southwesterly winds were blowing across ponded water—during several intervals of the late Quaternary. In the upper Coastal Plain, dates from Flamingo Bay indicate the rim was active at 108.7 ± 10.9 ka BP and again at 40.3 ± 4.0 ka BP. The nearby Bay-40 had an actively forming sand rim at 77.9 ± 7.6 ka BP. Near the confluence of the Wateree and Congaree Rivers in the middle Coastal Plain, an eolian sand sheet was dated to 74.3 ± 7.1 ka BP. The surface of the sand sheet has been reworked to produce smaller-scale parabolic dunes, two of which were dated to 29.6 ± 2.4 ka BP and 33.2 ± 2.8 ka BP. Five dates from dunes on Sandy Island, between the Waccamaw and Great Pee Dee Rivers in the lower Coastal Plain, fall in the general range of 30 to 40 ka BP. These new ages, combined with previously reported dates from dunes and a bay rim in Georgia, are beginning to clarify the late Quaternary environmental history of the southeastern Coastal Plain.