New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts
Late Quaternary pollen records from the Lower Cobb Valley and adjacent
areas, North-West Nelson, New Zealand
J. Shulmeister
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch, New Zealand
W. L. McLea
108 Middleton Road
Johnsonville
Wellington, New Zealand
C. Singer
R. M. McKay
C. Hosie
School of Earth Sciences
Victoria University of Wellington
P.O. Box 600
Wellington, New Zealand
Abstract Ten pollen records from the Cobb Valley and
adjacent areas in North-West Nelson are described. Collectively they provide
a vegetation record extending from the Last Glacial Maximum to the present
day. During the Last Glacial Maximum the uplands of North-West Nelson were
glaciated. By about 17 000 radiocarbon years BP ice had retreated some distance
up the Cobb River valley and a podocarp heath and tussockland vegetation
covered non-glaciated areas. By 14 000 radiocarbon years BP, the valley floor
and adjacent lower ridges were occupied by montane podocarp forest dominated
by Phyllocladus and Halocarpus. Beech forest expanded into
some sites as early as 13 000 yr BP but the modern beech cover was not established
until the Holocene. Forest cover has fluctuated in response to disturbance
over the Holocene, but the most significant recent change, which is related
to clearing for pastoralism in the last two centuries, has had surprisingly
little impact on the pollen records.
Keywords vegetation history; LGM; Holocene; North-West
Nelson; beech migration; refugium
B02063 Received 26 September 2002; accepted 7 April 2003; online publication
date 11 September 2003R
New Zealand Journal of Botany, 2003, Vol. 41: 503-533
0028-825X/03/4103-0503 $7.00 © The Royal Society of New Zealand
2003
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