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Science 4 December 1998:
Vol. 282. no. 5395, pp. 1871 - 1874
DOI: 10.1126/science.282.5395.1871
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Reports

Climate and Vegetation History of the Midcontinent from 75 to 25 ka: A Speleothem Record from Crevice Cave, Missouri, USA

Jeffrey A. Dorale, * R. Lawrence Edwards, Emi Ito, Luis A. González

Four Missouri stalagmites yield consistent overlapping records of oxygen and carbon isotopic changes and provide a climate and vegetation history with submillennial resolution from 75 to 25 thousand years ago (ka). The thorium-230-dated records reveal that between 75 and 55 ka, the midcontinental climate oscillated on millennial time scales between cold and warm, and vegetation alternated among forest, savanna, and prairie. Temperatures were highest and prairie vegetation peaked between 59 and 55 ka. Climate cooled and forest replaced grassland at 55 ka, when global ice sheets began to build during the early part of Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 3.

J. A. Dorale, R. L. Edwards, E. Ito, Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. L. A. González, Department of Geology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dora0011{at}tc.umn.edu

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