SOUTHEASTERN LAURENTIDE DEGLACIAL MARGIN ENVIRONMENTS AND THEIR REGIONAL/CONTINENTAL CORRELATIONS - A FOCUS ON BASAL SEDIMENTS FROM GREEN POND AND SUTHERLAND FEN, NY, AND UTTERTOWN BOG, NJ

A transect of sediment cores from lakes across the Laurentide ice margin is selected to define the earliest record of plant and animal fossils deposited in the glacial clays as the ice melted. The high-resolution AMS-dated macrofossil stratigraphic record at Green Pond, NY, in Rockland County, reveals a sequence of first mosses, then cranefly remains followed by subarctic tundra fossils. As the climate warmed and gyttja formed in the lake, boreal forest colonized the region. To the north about 30 km, Sutherland Fen, NY records spruce and willow first in the inorganic clays, followed by spruce, fir, and jack pine. Westward at Uttertown Bog, NJ, shallow aquatics record the earliest plant life, followed by larch colonization and finally spruce. The chronological relationship of these events to lake records both northward, to the west, and in the southeastern part of the US will be discussed. The timing of these terrestrial paleoclimatic reconstructions will be compared with the timing of marine events in the North Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, European pollen stratigraphy, and ice core stratigraphy.