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L. D. Carter

Publications and source records attributed to L. D. Carter.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS2017

Anomalous radiocarbon ages from a Holocene detrital organic lens in Alaska and their implications for radiocarbon dating and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the arctic

Eleven radiocarbon age determinations clearly show that a lens of Holocene fluvial organic debris on the Alaskan Arctic Coastal Plain contains mostly pre-Holocene organic material. Radio-carbon ages of identified plant macrofossils indicate the material was deposited about 9000 to 9500 yr B.P. Radiocarbon analyses of bulk samples from this deposit, however, range from 13,300 to 30,300 yr B.P. Most of the old organic matter seems to be in the smaller size fractions in the deposit, particularly in the fraction between 0.25 and 0.5 mm, but all size fractions are contaminated. Particular caution must be exercised in submitting bulk samples for radiocarbon dating from areas where conditions favor redeposition of isotopically "dead" carbon. ?? 1988.

Quaternary Research↗
USGS1994

Miocene and Pliocene lacustrine and fluvial sequences, Upper Ramparts and Canyon village, Porcupine river, east-central Alaska

Cenozoic strata exposed along the Porcupine River between the Upper Ramparts and Canyon Village, Alaska, can be divided into five unconformity-bounded units (sequences) which are: lower and middle Miocene unit A, the white sandy fluvial sequence with peat beds; middle Miocene unit B, the basalt sequence-part B1 is basalt, and part B2 is organic-rich sedimentary beds; upper Miocene unit C, mudrock-dominated lake sequence; late Miocene or Pliocene to Pleistocene unit D, terrace gravels, detrital organic matter and associated sediments, and Holocene unit E, mixed sand and gravel-rich sediment and other sedimentary material including peat and eolian silt. The sequence (unit A) of lower and middle Miocene fluvial deposits formed in streams and on flood plains, just before the inception of local volanism. Fossil pollen from unit A suggests conifer-dominated regional forests and cool temperate climates. Peat beds and lake deposits from unit B contain pollen that indicates a warmer temperate climate coinciding with the middle Miocene thermal maximum. The lake deposits (unit C) downstream from the basalts accumulated in a small basin which resulted from a hydrologic system that was dammed in the late Miocene but breached soon thereafter. The lower part of the terrace gravels (unit D) expresses breaching of the dammed hydrologic system (of unit C). The Porcupine River became a major tributary of the Yukon River in late Pleistocene time when Laurentide ice blocked drainage from the Yukon interior basins causing meltwater to spill over the low divide separating it from the Porcupine River drainage initiating erosion and capture of the Yukon interior basins. ?? 1994.

Quaternary International↗
USGS1987

Dinosaurs on the North Slope, Alaska: High latitude, latest cretaceous environments

Abundant skeletal remains demonstrate that lambeosaurine hadrosaurid, tyrannosaurid, and troodontid dinosaurs lived on the Alaskan North Slope during late Campanian—early Maestrichtian time (about 66 to 76 million years ago) in a deltaic environment dominated by herbaceous vegetation. The high ground terrestrial plant community was a mild- to cold-temperate forest composed of coniferous and broad leaf trees. The high paleolatitude (about 70° to 85° North) implies extreme seasonal variation in solar insolation, temperature, and herbivore food supply. Great distances of migration to contemporaneous evergreen floras and the presence of both juvenile and adult hadrosaurs suggest that they remained at high latitudes year-round. This challenges the hypothesis that short-term periods of darkness and temperature decrease resulting from a bolide impact caused dinosaurian extinction.

Alaska↗
USGS1985

Early Tertiary marine fossils from northern Alaska: Implications for Arctic Ocean paleogeography and faunal evolution

Marine mollusks and ostracodes indicate a post-Danian Paleocene to early Eocene (Thanetian to Ypresian) age for a fauna from the Prince Creek Formation at Ocean Point, northern Alaska, that also contains genera characteristic of the Cretaceous and Neogene-Quaternary. The life-association of heterochronous taxa at Ocean Point resulted from an unusual paleogeographic setting, the nearly complete isolation of the Arctic Ocean from about the end of the Cretaceous until sometime in the Eocene, in which relict Cretaceous taxa survived into Tertiary time while endemic taxa evolved in situ; these later migrated to the northern mid-latitudes. Paleobiogeographic affinities of the Ocean Point association with mild temperate faunas of the London Basin (England), Denmark, and northern Germany indicate that a shallow, intermittent Paleocene seaway extended through the Norwegian-Greenland Sea to the North Sea Basin. Early Tertiary Arctic Ocean paleogeography deduced from faunal evidence agrees with that inferred from plate-tectonic reconstructions.

Geology↗
USGS1981

A Pleistocene sand sea on the Alaskan Arctic Coastal Plain

A ridge and thermokarst-basin landscape that is strikingly portrayed in Landsat winter imagery consists of large Pleistocene dunes that have been modified by younger eolian activity and thermokarst processes. This is the most extensive area of large stabilized dunes yet reported in the North American Arctic; the landscape is of particular interest because it has been proposed as a first-order analog for martian fretted terrain. Recognition of the large dunes permits a new interpretation for linear and curvilinear trends visible in Landsat summer imagery.

Alaska↗