This award supports an investigation of the insect fossils, plant macrofossils and pollen of known accumulations of organic sediment of the North Central Alaska Range, addressing their paleoenvironmental and stratigraphic significance. The mid-Wisconsin, Boutellier interval is an important time during the late Pleistocene in eastern Beringia. Organic-rich sediments that date to this interval are ubiquitous throughout unglaciated Alaska and the Yukon Territory. The widespread occurrence of these deposits suggests regional climatic amelioration and associated changes in biological communities. This investigation will document these changes by developing a high-resolution record of paleoenvironmental change through close-interval sampling and detailed lithostratigraphic analysis of known deposits of Boutellier age. These paleoecological studies will fill a regional gap in previous Boutellier paleoenvironmental investigations in southwestern Alaska and the Alaskan interior/Yukon regions. This data will contribute significantly to an understanding of the role of Beringian paleoclimates in global climatic events.
