Late Pleistocene and Holocene Beringia vegetation dynamic reconstructions based on a yedoma exposure, Itkillik (Alaska)

The Itkillik river area in Alaska (69°34′ N, 150°52′W), is part of the loosely defined region of Beringia, which was largely unglaciated during the last ice age. Beringia is known to have acted as a refugium for boreal trees and shrubs during the Pleistocene, but questions remain about the environmental history of North-Eastern Beringia, especially the extent and dynamics of the now extinct tundra-steppe biome. The 33-m-high Itkillik river exposure formed over the late Pleistocene / early Holocene (48,000 to 5,000 14C yr BP) and the exposed eolian sediments are largely undisturbed, offering a unique opportunity to examine a long term vegetation sequence in high latitude environment and link the vegetation reconstructions with the sedimentology and cryostratigraphy of the region. Because of the very low concentration of pollen in the sediments, we utilized an extraction method based on heavy-liquid (Sodium Polytungstate (SPT)) separation. Our results show a tundra-steppe vegetation type, characterized by the abundance of cyperacea and graminea taxa. Overall the pollen record of the Itkillik exposure will provide an important point of comparison to other sites localised in the circumpolar circle, especially in Siberia, as yedoma remains one of the most noticeable structures of the cold and dry periglacial environment of the Arctic and subarctic east Siberia. Implications of our findings for local climate reconstructions using pollen-climate transfer functions are discussed.