Paleoenvironmental Dynamics in Eastern North America

The landscapes of Eastern North America bear the imprint of a complex interplay between deglacial processes, orbital forcing and regional climate variability that has unfolded since the Late Pleistocene. Marine, lacustrine and peat deposits preserve sedimentary, biomarker and macrofossil evidence for shifts in temperature, precipitation and vegetation over millennial to centennial timescales. Holocene warming and cooling phases steered the advance and retreat of boreal conifers and temperate deciduous forests, while the strength and orientation of the latitudinal temperature gradient along the Atlantic corridor governed ecotone migrations. Multicentury droughts and wet intervals drove coherent lake-level changes across the northeast, and millennial-scale oscillations analogous to the modern North Atlantic Oscillation have left discernible traces in pollen and isotope records. Integration of high-resolution proxies has sharpened insights into climate–vegetation–hydrology feedbacks, informing models of future ecosystem resilience, identifying biodiversity refugia and guiding water-resource management in a region of global environmental significance.

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Technical terms

Holocene: The most recent geological epoch spanning the last ~11,700 years following the end of the last glacial period.

Palaeoclimate proxy: An indirect measure of past climate conditions obtained from natural recorders such as sediments, ice cores or biological remains.

Pollen analysis: The examination of pollen grains preserved in sediments to reconstruct past vegetation and infer climate variations.

Leaf-wax n-alkanes: Long-chain hydrocarbon biomarkers in sediments whose hydrogen isotope ratios reflect past rainfall and evaporation patterns.

Isotopic fractionation: The separation or partitioning of isotopes between substances or phases leading to distinct isotopic signatures in climate proxies.

Climate refugium: A location where favourable environmental conditions allow species to persist during periods of regional climatic stress.

Latitudinal temperature gradient: The change in average temperature observed between lower and higher latitudes, influencing ecosystem distribution.

Ecotone: A transition zone between two distinct ecological communities or biomes, often sensitive to climatic shifts.

References

1. A Millennial‐Scale Oscillation in Latitudinal Temperature Gradients Along the Western North Atlantic During the Mid‐Holocene. Geophysical Research Letters (2023).
2. Centennial‐to‐millennial hydrologic trends and variability along the North Atlantic Coast, USA, during the Holocene. Geophysical Research Letters (2014).
3. Early Holocene plant macrofossils indicate cool refugia for subalpine plant taxa in Acadia National Park, Maine. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2023).
4. Weak precipitation δ2H response to large Holocene hydroclimate changes in eastern North America. Quaternary Science Reviews (2023).