NOAA Paleoclimatology Program

S.T. Jackson, T.W. Chumley, & D.K. Singer

1. Introduction

Plant macrofossil data are an important component of paleovegetational and paleoenvironmental studies, typically providing higher spatial resolution and greater taxonomic precision than pollen data. These properties make plant macrofossils invaluable in corroborating and complementing pollen-based inferences and in reconstructing local vegetation composition and basin hydrology. Compilation and mapping of plant macrofossil data at regional and subcontinental scales can be used to delineate past geographic ranges of plant species, determine plant migration patterns, and identify vegetation physiognomy (e.g., Thompson 1988; Jackson et al. 1997). These maps can in turn be used to corroborate pollen-based inferences, test paleoclimate simulations from models, and constrain models that link terrestrial vegetation and climate.

In order to support these and other paleoenvironmental applications of plant macrofossil data, a cooperative North American Plant Macrofossil Database is being organized and compiled under sponsorship of the NOAA Paleoclimatatology Program. The database concentrates on Quaternary plant macrofossils from sediments in Greenland and North America north of Mexico (i.e. United States and Canada). A wide variety of sediments are represented - lacustrine, paludal, fluvial, aeolian, glacial, glaciomarine, estuarine, buried soils, and others. The database excludes plant macrofossils from packrat middens, which are being compiled in a separate database (Western North American Packrat-Midden Database). It also excludes plant macrofossils from archeological contexts. It includes macroscopic plant organs of all types, including megaspores (e.g. Isoetes, Selaginella) and oöspores (Charophyta).

The North American Plant Macrofossil Database is made available through the World Data Center-A (WDC-A) for Paleoclimatology, which is sponsored by the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) and the IGBP-Past Global Changes Program (PAGES) (Anderson 1995). A primary goal of the WDC-A for Paleoclimatology is compilation, management, archiving, and public distribution of paleoenvironmental data of potential use to global change studies.
The North American Plant Macrofossil Database effort is being directed by S.T. Jackson at University of Wyoming, guided by an advisory panel consisting of R.S. Anderson (Northern Arizona University), R.G. Baker (University of Iowa), P.J. Bartlein (University of Oregon), E.C. Grimm (Illinois State Museum), A. Larouche (Université de Montréal), J.H. McAndrews (Royal Ontario Museum), N.G. Miller (New York State Museum), and R.S. Thompson (United States Geological Survey). The Database originated as a research database for selected taxa in Late Quaternary sediments of eastern North America (Jackson et al. 1997). In 1994, an effort was initiated to build on this foundation to develop a cooperative database comprising the larger region, longer timespan, and all plant taxa. As of April 1998, 649 macrofossil records have been incorporated into the Database. Of these, 106 have been contributed directly by macrofossil analysts, and 543 have been obtained from transcription of tables and digitizing of figures from published papers and reports.

This document contains a compilation of Quaternary plant macrofossil sites in Greenland and North America, with information on location, elevation, site type, age, publication, and status with respect to the Database data contribution and compilation effort. We hope that this inventory will serve as a guide to spatial and temporal coverage of plant macrofossil data, and that it will facilitate our ongoing efforts in developing the Database. We welcome additions to the inventory, corrections to the information we provide here, and contributions of data. As noted above, we have obtained data for many sites directly from publications in order to develop a Database with sufficient number of sites to be useful in synoptic paleoenvironmental applications. This has been at some potential cost in data quality and precision, however. Potential errors are introduced at several stages, ranging from typos in original tables to errors in page-proof to imprecision of digitized data. Quality of the Database will be enhanced by direct contributions of original data. Electronic formats are preferred, but we can accomodate data in tabular or hand-written form (e.g. raw tally sheets). We encourage scientists with macrofossil data to contribute those data to the Database, even data we have already obtained from publications. Instructions for contributions can be found at http://www.uwyo.edu/a&s/bot/napmd/list4.htm. We thank the many individuals who have already contributed their data to this effort. We hope that publication of this document will facilitate further contributions from other scientists.

References:

Anderson, D.M. (editor). 1995. Global Paleoenvironmental Data: A Report from the Workshop Sponsored by Past Global Changes (PAGES), August 1993. PAGES Workshop Report Series 95-2.

Jackson, S.T., J.T. Overpeck, T. Webb III, S.E. Keattch, and K.H. Anderson. 1997. Mapped plant-macrofossil and pollen records of Late Quaternary vegetation change in eastern North America. Quaternary Science Reviews 16:1-70.

Thompson, R.S. 1988. Western North America. Vegetation dynamics in the western United States: modes of response to climatic fluctuations. Pages 415-458 in: B. Huntley & T. Webb III (editors). Vegetation History. Kluwer, The Hague, Netherlands.

2. Explanation of Tables

Our site inventory is organized hierarchically by country, state/province/district, site name, and entity. Entities are defined as specific samples or sequences from a site (e.g., cores, exposures, replicate surface samples). We include one table for each entity, which contains information about the entity and the site from which it was obtained:

In this example, the first line includes the site name (Heart Lake), the entity name (Core 2), and a short "handle" or sigle (maximum 8 characters) that uniquely identifies the site and entity (HEARTLK2). The entity entry is left blank for sites at which only one entity (e.g. a single core) was obtained or studied. The second line includes a four-letter code representing the modern site type (see Table 1), and a 1-5 letter code representing the time period represented by the sample (see Table 2). The second line also includes geographic coordinates and elevation (m above mean sea level) of the site. The third line includes a citation for the macrofossil data; full references are in the bibliography. The fourth line includes the name of a contact person (usually either the macrofossil analyst or the director of the project within which the data were obtained), and a record of the status of the site with respect to the Database. In the "Contributed" entry, Y indicates that the data have been contributed to the Database by the original analyst or other parties, while N indicates that data have not yet been contributed. In the "Entered" entry, Y indicates that data from the entity have been incorporated into the Database, while N indicates that data have not yet been incorporated.
For example, {Contributed: N Entered: Y } indicates that data have been obtained directly from the publication. {Contributed: Y Entered: Y } indicates that data have been contributed and have been incorporated into the Database. Entities for which data have neither been contributed nor extracted from publications are denoted by {Contributed: N Entered: N } . In a few instances ( {Contributed: Y Entered: N } ), contributed data are still on queue for incorporation into the Database.

Table 1. Key to four-letter codes denoting modern site type; these are the site descriptors used in the NAPMD and North American Pollen Database (NAPD).

Table 2. Key to symbols representing ages represented by macrofossil data within a specific entity. These ages are not inclusive. For example, an H designation does not imply that the entity spans the entire Holocene. Rather, it indicates that the entity includes samples of Holocene age. Two or more letters indicate the entity spans both time periods. For example, an LH designation indicates that the entity contains macrofossil samples of both Holocene and late-glacial age.

3. NAPMD Site/Entity Inventory