Holocene fire regimes and treeline migration rates in sub-arctic Canada

Holocene climate change resulted in major vegetation reorganization in sub-arctic Canada near modern treeline. However, little is known of the effects of long-term climate change on boreal forest composition and fire regimes below treeline in this region. We present a high-resolution vegetation and fire history from two sites within the modern boreal forest in the central Northwest Territories, Canada, to provide new insight on sub-arctic vegetation response to Holocene climate dynamics and the role of fire in boreal ecosystems. Palynological analysis of sediments retrieved from Waite and Danny's lakes (informal) is used to reconstruct regional vegetation dynamics and boreal fire regimes. The longer Danny's Lake record documents treeline expansion beginning at ca. 7430–7220 cal yr BP. Integration of our new data with previous work shows that treeline expanded between ca. 4050 cal. yr BP and ca. 3840 cal yr BP at a rate of ca. 50 m/yr in response to the 1–2 °C increase in temperature estimated for the Holocene Thermal Maximum. Forest fires were relatively frequent during the early Holocene, before declining in frequency in response to development of cooler and wetter climate conditions associated with the Neoglacial (beginning after ca. 2200–2320 cal yr BP). We document a trend of increasing fire frequency in the 20th century that is correlated with warming at this time. These dynamics south of modern treeline provide insight into factors creating heterogeneity in plant community responses to large-scale climate events in high northern latitudes and suggest that large scale reorganization of boreal vegetation and fire regimes can be expected over the coming decades

1.8 billion years of detrital zircon recycling calibrates a refractory part of Earth’s sedimentary cycle

Detrital zircon studies are providing new insights on the evolution of sedimentary basins but the role of sedimentary recycling remains largely undefined. In a broad region of northwestern North America, this contribution traces the pathway of detrital zircon sand grains from Proterozoic sandstones through Phanerozoic strata and argues for multi-stage sedimentary recycling over more than a billion years. As a test of our hypothesis, integrated palynology and detrital zircon provenance provides clear evidence for erosion of Carboniferous strata in the northern Cordillera as a sediment source for Upper Cretaceous strata. Our results help to calibrate Earth's sedimentary cycle by showing that recycling dominates sedimentary provenance for the refractory mineral zircon