CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Burns, J. A.
Date : 1984
Title : Late Quaternary palaeoecology and zoogeography of Southwestern Alberta: Vertebrate and palynoIogical evidence from two Rocky Mountain caves.
Publication : Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Toronto, Torono
Issue :
Page(s) :
Abstract
Knowledge of the environment and zoogeography of the Late Wisconsin is augmented by recoveries in the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Alberta from January Cave on Plateau Mountain and from Eagle Cave in the Crowsnest Pass. The cave excavations, originally undertaken in the pursuit of early man in North America, revealed thousands of bones and teeth of Pleistocene and Holocene microvertebrates. A taphonomic enquiry suggests that the January Cave remains were deposited largely by avian raptors but also by mammalian carnivores, and not by fluvial or glacial action. The bones and teeth identified include at least 54 species of mammals, 23 species of birds, and four species of fish, dating back 23,000 years or more. Complementary to the faunal analysis, the study of fossil pollen in sediments at January Cave serves to confirm that locally, and probably regionally, there was ice-free terrain around Plateau Mountain in the Late Wisconsin. Treeless tundra formed a backdrop to the activities of animals of which the indigenous horse and passenger pigeon are now extinct and some of which now have dramatically different ranges including two lemmings, prairie dogs, ferrets, swift fox, and Arctic grayling. The nature of the Pleistocene glaciations makes it difficult, however, to synthesize Wisconsin-age environments and biogeography in Alberta because few substantial sites in primary context are khown.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology