This award supports an integrated research project to develop chronostratigraphic and paleoenvironmental records of the continental shelves of the Chukchi and Bering Seas, off northwestern Alaska. The project will focus on the paleontology of peat layers in late Pleistocene terrestrial and marginal marine (marsh) sediments from existing cores. Development of these records will involve an integrated study of insects, pollen, plant macrofossils, ostracods, and foraminifera. The goal of this project is to understand the Pleistocene paleoecology and the inundation history of the Bering land bridge. In addition to providing a better understanding of Pleistocene paleoenvironmental conditions, the results of this work have implications for paleoclimatology, through improved records of sea level change, and anthropology, through a better chronology and understanding of the Bering land bridge.
