University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln USGS Staff -- Published Research US Geological Survey 2011 The rise and fall of Lake Bonneville between 45 and 10.5 ka L.V. Benson U.S. Geological Survey, [email protected] S.P. Lund University of Southern California, [email protected] J.P. Smoot U.S. Geological Survey, [email protected] D.E. Rhode Desert Research Institute, [email protected] R.J. Spencer University of Calgary, [email protected] See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usgsstaffpub Part of the Geology Commons, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons, Other Earth Sciences Commons, and the Other Environmental Sciences Commons Benson, L.V.; Lund, S.P.; Smoot, J.P.; Rhode, D.E.; Spencer, R.J.; Verosub, K.L.; Louderback, L.A.; Johnson, C.A.; Rye, R.O.; and Negrini, R.M., "The rise and fall of Lake Bonneville between 45 and 10.5 ka" (2011). USGS Staff -- Published Research. 726. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usgsstaffpub/726 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the US Geological Survey at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in USGS Staff -- Published Research by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Authors L.V. Benson, S.P. Lund, J.P. Smoot, D.E. Rhode, R.J. Spencer, K.L. Verosub, L.A. Louderback, C.A. Johnson, R.O. Rye, and R.M. Negrini This article is available at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ usgsstaffpub/726 Quaternary International 235 (2011) 57e69 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint The rise and fall of Lake Bonneville between 45 and 10.5 ka L.V. Benson a,*, S.P. Lund b, J.P. Smoot c, D.E. Rhode d, R.J. Spencer e, K.L. Verosub f, L.A. Louderback g, C.A. Johnson h, R.O. Rye h, R.M. Negrini i a U.S. Geological Survey, 3215 Marine Street, Boulder, CO 80303, USA b Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA c U.S. Geological Survey, MS 955, Reston, VA 22092, USA d Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, Desert Research Institute, 2215 Raggio Parkway, Reno, NV 89512, USA e Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada f Department of Geology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA g Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Box 353100, Seattle, WA 98195-3100, USA h U.S. Geological Survey, MS 963, Denver Federal Center, Lakewood, CO 80225, USA i Department of Geology, California State University, Bakersfield, CA 93311-1022, USA article info abstract Article history: A sediment core taken from the western edge of the Bonneville Basin has provided high-resolution proxy Available online 23 December 2010 records of relative lake-size change for the period 45.1e10.5 calendar ka (hereafter ka). Age control was provided by a paleomagnetic secular variation (PSV)-based age model for Blue Lake core BL04-4. Continuous records of d18O and total inorganic carbon (TIC) generally match an earlier lake-level envelope based on outcrops and geomorphic features, but with differences in the timing of some hydrologic events/states. The Stansbury Oscillation was found to consist of two oscillations centered on 25 and 24 ka. Lake Bonneville appears to have reached its geomorphic highstand and began spilling at 18.5 ka. The fall from the highstand to the Provo level occurred at 17.0 ka and the lake intermittently overflowed at the Provo level until 15.2 ka, at which time the lake fell again, bottoming out at w14.7 ka. The lake also fell briefly below the Provo level at w15.9 ka. Carbonate and d18O data indicate that between 14.7 and 13.1 ka the lake slowly rose to the Gilbert shoreline and remained at about that elevation until 11.6 ka, when it fell again. Chemical and sedimentological data indicate that a marsh formed in the Blue Lake area at 10.5 ka. Relatively dry periods in the BL04-4 records are associated with Heinrich events H1eH4, suggesting that either the warming that closely followed a Heinrich event increased the evaporation rate in the Bonneville Basin and (or) that the core of the polar jet stream (PJS) shifted north of the Bonneville Basin in response to massive losses of ice from the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) during the Heinrich event. The second Stansbury Oscillation occurred during Heinrich event H2, and the Gilbert wet event occurred during the Younger Dryas cold interval. Several relatively wet events in BL04-4 occur during Dansgaard- Oeschger (DO) warm events. The growth of the Bear River glacier between 32 and 17 ka paralleled changes in the values of proxy indicators of Bonneville Basin wetness and terminal moraines on the western side of the Wasatch Mountains have ages ranging from 16.9 to 15.2 ka. This suggests a near synchroneity of change in the hydrologic and cryologic balances occurring in the Bonneville drainage system and that glacial extent was linked to lake size. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Approximately 15,000 years ago, lakes in the Great Basin of the * Corresponding author. western United States achieved their maximum late Pleistocene E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L.V. Benson), [email protected] (S.P. Lund), extents. Two of those lake systems stand out in terms of surface area: [email protected] (J.P. Smoot), [email protected] (D.E. Rhode), [email protected] 2 (R.J. Spencer), [email protected] (K.L. Verosub), [email protected] Lake Lahontan with a surface area of 22,300 km , and Lake Bonne- 2 (L.A. Louderback), [email protected] (C.A. Johnson), [email protected] (R.M. Negrini). ville with a surface area of 51,300 km (Fig. 1). These gigantic fresh- 1040-6182/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2010.12.014 58 L.V. Benson et al. / Quaternary International 235 (2011) 57e69 generated precipitation indeed was a substantial component of the hydrologic budget of Lake Bonneville 18,000 years ago. The creation of records of change in the size of lakes in the Lahontan and Bonneville basins are of two types: outcrop-based studies from which were created discontinuous envelopes of lake- level change, and core-based studies which allow continuous or nearly continuous proxy records of relative changes in lake level. The Bonneville Basin has provided detailed 36,000-year, outcrop- based records of change in the hydrologic balance of the eastern Great Basin (see e.g., Currey and Oviatt, 1985; Oviatt et al., 1992; Godsey et al., 2005). Oviatt (1997) produced isotopic, carbonate mineralogy, and TIC records from two short (<2 m) cores that penetrated subaerially exposed deep-water carbonates. Sediments at the two core sites range in age from w20e14.5 ka. To date, Spencer et al. (1984) have been the only researchers to produce a non-outcrop, core-based record of change in the size of Lake Bonneville for the past 30 ka. Age control for this study was extremely limited and age models for the various sediment cores were based on linear extrapolation between three samples: the Mazama and Carson Sink tephras and a piece of wood. Two of the above studies (Oviatt, 1997; Oviatt et al., 2005) attempted to link oscillations in the size of Lake Bonneville with North Atlantic Heinrich and Younger Dryas events. This paper provides continuous and nearly continuous, core- based records of change in the hydrologic balance of Lake Bonne- Fig. 1. Great Basin lakes about 15,000 years ago. The outline of the Great Basin is e enclosed by a dashed line. The Blue Lake Marsh core sites are located on the western ville for the period 45.1 10.5 ka. The isotopic and carbonate records edge of Lake Bonneville near the NevadaeUtah border. have a 50-year temporal resolution; i.e., each sample integrates 50 years of record. In addition, PSV-based age models are employed for water bodies, which had surface areas approximately 10 times their the hydrologic-balance proxy records created in this study. The PSV reconstructed mean-historical values, have been the subject of concept was first applied in a study of the Wilson Creek Formation intensive scientific research since Russell’s seminal study of Lake at Mono Lake, California, by Benson et al. (1998). Since that study, Lahontan (Russell, 1885) and Gilbert’s seminal study of Lake Bon- one of the authors (Steve Lund) has created master PSV (magnetic neville (Gilbert, 1890). Three main questions have occupied the inclination, declination, and intensity) records derived from Holo- minds of present-day paleoclimatologists working in these two cene (0e10 ka) PSV records in North American lakes and from late basins: (1) what caused the lakes to grow so large, (2) what was the Pleistocene (10e70 ka) marine PSV records from the North Atlantic record of lake-level change in each basin during the last glacial Ocean. The marine PSV records are plotted on a calendar time scale period, and (3) were lake-size changes linked to abrupt changes in based on the GISP2 chronology. The tie to the GISP2 chronology was the climate of the North Atlantic signaled by Dansgaard-Oeschger determined by matching d18O and TIC oscillations in marine cores, and Heinrich events (see, e.g., Bond et al., 1993; Dansgaard et al., which reflect the presence of Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) cycles and 1993).