Correlation of Marine and Continental Quaternary Pollen Records from the Northeast Pacific and Western Washington

Abstract

Late-glacial and postglacial pollen stratigraphy and radiocarbon chronology of a marine core from the continental slope and a core from the western Olympic Peninsula, ca. 110 km apart, are compared. Divisible into four pollen assemblage zones (L, P-1, P-2, and P-3), the cores exhibit a succession of correlative zonal prominences: grass-sedge (L), pine (P-1), alder (P-1-P-2 boundary), and hemlock (P-3). Volcanic ash of Mt. Mazama provenance is also correlative in zone P-2. Quantitative relationships of the pollen in the cores (relative and absolute numbers and pollen influx) are dissimilar, however, and are attributed to the influence of the Columbia River pollen load reaching the locale of the continental slope core compared with the local pollen rain influencing the Olympic Peninsula core site.