Modern Analogues of Late-Quaternary Pollen Spectra from the Western Interior of North America

Abstract

The Western interior of Canada and adjacent north-central Alaska is a well-defined phytogeographic region, centred on the boreal forest, and including marginal grassland, parkland, forest-tundra and tundra zones. Late Quaternary fossil pollen spectra from 12 lake sites across this area are compared with each of 303 modern pollen sites by a chord-distance similarity measure. The resulting analysis, presented in mapped and downcore form, provides an objective assessment of the range of similarity between fossil and modern pollen spectra in space and time. -from Authors