This award supports research involving detailed sedimentological and stratigraphic studies of the lower Tanana erg, a large stabilized sand sea of late-Quaternary age in central Alaska. The objectives of the study are (1) to provide a paleoenvironmental record of glacially influenced lowland sedimentation that can be compared to similar records from other periglacial basins in Alaska and to dated glacial records in the Alaska Range, and (2) to increase the understanding of depositional processes and facies distributions in cold-climate eolian systems as a whole. Among the specific hypotheses to be tested is whether prominent surface dunes represent full-glacial conditions or formed by late-glacial reworking of full- glacial sand sheets. The results of the study will have broad implications for paleoclimatic, paleoecological, and archeological research in Alaska and for stratigraphic and sedimentological research in Pleistocene periglacial regions in general.
