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Evidence for a Shallow Early or Middle Wisconsin-Age Lake in the Bonneville Basin, Utah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Charles G. Oviatt ,
William D. McCoy  and
Richard G. Reider
Charles G. Oviatt
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506
William D. McCoy
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geography, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003
Richard G. Reider
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071
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Abstract

Relatively complete stratigraphic records of the Bonneville cycle and of at least one and probably two earlier lacustrine are exposed along the Bear River below Cutler Dam in northern Utah between altitudes of 1290 and 1365 m. In most exposures the unconformity between the Bonneville Alloformation and the underlying unit, herein named the Cutler Dam Alloformation, is marked by slight erosional relief and by a weakly to moderately developed buried soil, herein named the Fielding Geosol. In truncated profiles, the Fielding Geosol reaches a maximum of stage II carbonate morphology. Wood from near the base of the Cutler Dam Alloformation yielded a 14C date of >36,000 yr B.P. (Beta-9845). Alloisoleucine/isoleucine (aIle/Ile) ratios of Sphaerium shells from the Cutler Dam beds average 0.15 ± 0.01 in the total hydrolysate, which is significantly greater than the average for Sphaerium shells of Bonneville age elsewhere in the basin. Therefore, the Cutler Dam Alloformation is older than 36,000 yr B.P., but much younger than deposits of the Little Valley lake cycle (140,000 yr B.P.?) which bear shells having significantly higher aIle/Ile ratios. The Cutler Dam Alloformation along the Bear River may be broadly correlative with marine oxygen-isotope stages 4 or 3. Fine-grained, fossiliferous, marginal-lacustrine facies of the Cutler Dam Alloformation are exposed at altitudes near 1340 m, and are probably the highest exposures of sediments deposited in the early or middle Wisconsin lake in the Bonneville basin.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , May 1987 , pp. 248 - 262
Copyright
University of Washington

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