Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 08/12/2012 - 20:31
Forums
High Arctic Change 2012

Dan, noted your picture of whale bones -- I assume they were recent but in your core samples or in your digs has there been any artifacts or fossils of large animals and what would they mean to the history of the area.

Thu, 08/16/2012 - 04:06

Dan Frost

Hello and great question. There have been numerous fossils from the area with the most being contributed by smaller bivalves. These shells are found throughout the sediments that make up everywhere under the past marine limit, that is the lower elevations that were flooded by sea level ~10k yrs bp when the land was initially deglaciated and still depressed isostatically thus allowing the marine transgression. The while area within about 3-5 km of the current coast is made of old beach sands and gravels with different sections being formed at different levels of the falling paleo-coastline. So, imagine a period of stability forming a beach-flat, then it drops some more. Radiocarbon ages on the shells associated with a particular stand-still have allowed scientists to date the ages of the beaches and reconstruct the sea-level curve associated with the area. Other animals are found in these gravels as well but with much less frequency. Whale bones are present occasionally but so walrus. The interesting thing about the walrus is that as they near their time of passing, they have a tendency to leave the beach and go a little nutty, 'walking' inland. You must accordingly take the dates associated with them to be minimum ages for the sites that they are found as the ground they moved to was formed before their walk-about. Thanks for the great question,
Dan