Late Wisconsinan and Holocene fauna from Smith Creek Canyon, Snake Range, Nevada.

Abstract

During the late Pleistocene, montane glaciers in the Snake Range, eastern Nevada reached an elevation as low as 2900m and pluvial Lake Bonneville rose to approximately 1580m, only 130m below the entrance of the east-facing Smith Creek Canyon. It is not known whether the two events coincided. Packrat midden macrofossils indicate that bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva), limber pine (P. flexilis), and other subalpine taxa dominated through the late Wisconsinan. We report here 2 fish, 4 anurans, 9 lizards, 8 snakes, and 15 small mammals recovered from 15 packrat middens and a pollen profile from cave fill. We review and update the late Pleistocene and Holocene fauna from 4 caves and 2 shelters. -from Authors