MULTI-PROXY EVIDENCE OF LATE QUATERNARY PALEOENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES FROM TWO CAROLINA BAYS IN NORTH CAROLINA: 2. STABLE ISOTOPES AND MACROSCOPIC CHARCOAL

The Atlantic Coastal Plain includes approximately 500,000 shallow, elliptical depressions with elevated sand rims known as Carolina Bays. Carolina Bays are most abundant in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and are oriented in a northwest-southeast direction. The origin and formation of these Bays has long been debated, but wind and wave action are important factors in their development. The Carolina Bays represent important paleoenvironmental archives in the southeastern United States as many of them contain Pleistocene sediments dating beyond the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Pleistocene climate is characterized by high-amplitude cyclic variation, while the Holocene is considered to be relatively stable. However, several recent studies indicate that the southeastern United States has experienced significant climate change during the Holocene. The objective of this research is to provide a high-resolution, multi-proxy paleoenvironmental record using sediment cores recovered from two Carolina Bays (Jones and Singletary Lake) in Bladen County, North Carolina, in order to further elucidate paleoenvironmental changes during the late Quaternary, with an emphasis on the Holocene. Multi-proxy analyses include a contiguous macroscopic charcoal record to reconstruct fire history at decadal resolution, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of lake sediments as a proxy of aquatic productivity and vegetation changes in response to climate shifts, and pollen and microscopic charcoal analyses. These geographically novel multi-proxy analyses will be compared between the two Carolina Bays, which both contain sediment records dating back ~40,000 years, and will expand upon the lower resolution pollen analyses conducted in the 1950’s and 1960’s.