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Pluvial Lakes in the Great Basin of the Western United States-A View From See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262806093 Pluvial lakes in the Great Basin of the western United States—a view from the outcrop Article in Quaternary Science Reviews · August 2014 DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.04.012 CITATIONS READS 28 172 4 authors, including: Marith C. Reheis United States Geological Survey 119 PUBLICATIONS 3,485 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: fun in retirement! View project Tephrochronology Project View project All content following this page was uploaded by Marith C. Reheis on 26 April 2016. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately. Quaternary Science Reviews 97 (2014) 33e57 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary Science Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quascirev Invited review Pluvial lakes in the Great Basin of the western United Statesda view from the outcrop Marith C. Reheis a,*, Kenneth D. Adams b, Charles G. Oviatt c, Steven N. Bacon b a U.S. Geological Survey, MS-980, Federal Center Box 25046, Denver, CO 80225, USA b Desert Research Institute, 2215 Raggio Parkway, Reno, NV 89512, USA c Department of Geology, Kansas State University, 108 Thompson Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA article info abstract Article history: Paleo-lakes in the western United States provide geomorphic and hydrologic records of climate and Received 1 March 2013 drainage-basin change at multiple time scales extending back to the Miocene. Recent reviews and studies Received in revised form of paleo-lake records have focused on interpretations of proxies in lake sediment cores from the northern 7 April 2014 and central parts of the Great Basin. In this review, emphasis is placed on equally important studies of Accepted 11 April 2014 lake history during the past w30 years that were derived from outcrop exposures and geomorphology, in Available online some cases combined with cores. Outcrop and core records have different strengths and weaknesses that must be recognized and exploited in the interpretation of paleohydrology and paleoclimate. Outcrops Keywords: Pluvial lake and landforms can yield direct evidence of lake level, facies changes that record details of lake-level fl fl Great Basin uctuations, and geologic events such as catastrophic oods, drainage-basin changes, and isostatic Paleoclimate rebound. Cores can potentially yield continuous records when sampled in stable parts of lake basins and Drainage basin history can provide proxies for changes in lake level, water temperature and chemistry, and ecological conditions Quaternary in the surrounding landscape. However, proxies such as stable isotopes may be influenced by several Outcrop competing factors the relative effects of which may be difficult to assess, and interpretations may be confounded by geologic events within the drainage basin that were unrecorded or not recognized in a core. The best evidence for documenting absolute lake-level changes lies within the shore, nearshore, and deltaic sediments that were deposited across piedmonts and at the mouths of streams as lake level rose and fell. We review the different shorezone environments and resulting deposits used in such re- constructions and discuss potential estimation errors. Lake-level studies based on deposits and landforms have provided paleohydrologic records ranging from general changes during the past million years to centennial-scale details of fluctuations during the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Outcrop studies have documented the integration histories of several important drainage basins, including the Humboldt, Amargosa, Owens, and Mojave river systems, that have evolved since the Miocene within the active tectonic setting of the Great Basin; these histories have influenced lake levels in terminal basins. Many pre-late Pleistocene lakes in the western Great Basin were significantly larger and record wetter conditions than the youngest lakes. Outcrop-based lake-level data provide important checks on core-based proxy interpretations; we discuss four such comparisons. In some cases, such as for Lakes Owens and Manix, outcrop and core data synthesis yields stronger and more complete records; in other cases, such as for Bonneville and Lahontan, conflicts point toward reconsideration of confounding factors in interpretation of core-based proxies. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction Russell (1885) and Gilbert (1890) in the late 19th century. The sediments and landforms of pluvial lakes found in these basins are Pluvial lakes in the western United States have been studied sensitive recorders of paleohydrologic conditions and provide in- intensively for over 125 years, beginning with the classic studies of formation on the magnitudes and rates of climatic change that influence lake level. Lake sediments also reveal sedimentary and geomorphic processes and can record geologic events fl * Corresponding author. such as drainage-basin changes, oods, alluvial fan deposition, E-mail address: [email protected] (M.C. Reheis). ground-rupturing earthquakes, and crustal rebound. From a http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.04.012 0277-3791/Published by Elsevier Ltd. 34 M.C. Reheis et al. / Quaternary Science Reviews 97 (2014) 33e57 biogeomorphic perspective, the distribution of many aquatic spe- A recent review of paleohydrologic and paleoclimatic in- cies in this region only makes sense when past hydrologic con- terpretations for the central and northern Great Basin focused on nections are understood. In addition, study of these basins provides core data (Benson, 2004), but outcrop-based work in the same area important paleoenvironmental context for archaeological sites and studies of lakes from the southern Great Basin (Fig. 1) have not found along the ancient lake margins. received similar attention. Our goal is to review notable advances Many different approaches have been used to decipher the made in the past few decades using outcrop studies of pluvial lake histories of pluvial basins. Periodic reviews of the state of paleo- deposits in the Great Basin and to provide examples of studies that lake research in the western U.S. have been published by yield significant insights on the interplay between Quaternary cli- Morrison (1965), Reeves (1968), Smith and Street-Perrott (1983), matic and geologic controls on lake records. Such insights include Benson and Thompson (1987), Currey (1990), Negrini (2002), documentation of: (1) many pre-late Pleistocene lakes in the Benson (2004), Orme (2008), and Grayson (2011). In general, in- western Great Basin that were significantly larger and record dividual lake studies published prior to the 1970s primarily relied wetter conditions than the late Pleistocene lakes (Reheis et al., on interpretation of sediments preserved in outcrop (e.g., Russell, 2002a; Redwine, 2003); (2) drainage-basin integration by lake 1885; Gilbert, 1890; Blackwelder and Ellsworth, 1936; Morrison, overflow (e.g., Reheis et al., 2002a; House et al., 2008); (3) 1964; Lajoie, 1968). After the 1970s, however, researchers drainage-basin changes caused by tectonic or volcanic damming, involved in deciphering the hydrologic and climatic records of triggering lake overflow and sometimes catastrophic floods (e.g., Pleistocene pluvial lakes in the western U.S. have increasingly used Bouchard et al., 1998; Reheis et al., 2002b; Carter et al., 2006); (4) cores collected from extant lakes including Pyramid Lake (Benson complex relations among basins and subbasins controlled by et al., 1997b, 2002, 2013), Walker Lake (Bradbury et al., 1989; changing threshold altitudes (e.g., Adams et al., 1999; Meek, 1999); Benson et al., 1991), Mono Lake (Davis, 1999), and Bear Lake and (5) well-constrained lake-level fluctuations during the late (Rosenbaum and Reynolds, 2004; Rosenbaum and Kaufman, 2009) Pleistocene and Holocene (e.g., Stine, 1990; Adams, 2003a, 2007; as well as from desiccated lakes such as Lake Bonneville (Oviatt Bacon et al., 2006). et al., 1999; Benson et al., 2011), Searles Lake (Smith et al., 1983), We use the term “pluvial lake basin” to mean a basin that has Owens Lake (Benson et al., 1996; Bischoff et al., 1997; Smith et al., recorded past lake levels higher than present that were usually 1997), Lake Manly (Lowenstein et al., 1999; Anderson and Wells, caused by periods of increased precipitation and (or) decreased 2003; Forester et al., 2005), and Lake Chewaucan (Cohen et al., evaporation (Reeves, 1968; Smith and Street-Perrott, 1983; Benson 2000; Negrini et al., 2000). and Thompson, 1987). For the region of study, the term is essen- Core and outcrop records have different strengths and weak- tially synonymous with “paleo-lake basin,” and we use the terms nesses in the interpretation of paleohydrology and paleoclimate interchangeably. Although most of these basins are presently (Cohen, 2003). Cores can potentially yield continuous records of closed (endorheic), others have spilled to or have been integrated lake history when sampled in the most stable parts of lake basins, with downstream closed basins. There are many other outcrop- are easy to sample in fine increments in laboratory settings, and can based lake-level records external to the hydrologic Great Basin, provide proxies for changes in lake level, water temperature and such as in
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