Mammals of Washington, Volume 2: University of Kansas Publications Museum of Natural HistoryDalquest, Walter Woelber
Science
Mammals of Washington, Volume 2: University of Kansas Publications Museum of Natural History
Dalquest, Walter Woelber
Mammals -- Washington (State)
The Pleistocene was a time of great change in the mammalian fauna of the
world. Unfortunately the beautiful glacial sequence revealed in Europe
and the Mississippi Valley cannot be detected in Washington. In western
Washington the deposits of the last continental glaciation and fluvial
deposits of the last interglacial period almost everywhere obscure
evidence of earlier glaciations. Deposits of an earlier glaciation,
named Admiralty by Bretz (1913), have been detected in places. Deposits
of greater age, that may represent a still earlier glaciation, have been
noted. In eastern Washington the only definite proof of multiple
glaciation is of one glaciation preceding the last. This is the Spokane
glaciation of Bretz (1923). That multiple glaciation in the sequence
reported from the Mississippi Valley affected Washington seems probable.
The lack of evidence of a complete sequence is negative evidence. In
western Washington the earliest glacial deposits might be beneath the
later deposits or they may have been removed or reworked by subsequent
glaciations, whereas in eastern Washington they may have been removed by
subsequent glaciation and erosion.
The time interval between the two known glaciations appears to have been
of greater duration than the Recent. The drift of the earlier period is
sometimes found covered by the till of the later glaciation, and
preserved by it. The early material is deeply weathered and all save the
hardest pebbles and quartzites, for example, are rotten and disintegrate
at the touch. In contrast, the later deposits are almost unweathered.
Pebbles are hard, and ring when struck. A zone of leaching and oxidation
of the finer materials reaches a depth of some 30 inches, below which
the till is fresh.
Two names are currently applied to the last continental glaciation of
the state of Washington. That west of the Cascade Mountains, studied and
described by Bretz (1913), was termed "Vashon." The interglacial cycle
preceding it was called "Puyallup." The glaciation of eastern Washington
has been called "Wisconsin," after the Mississippi Valley terminology,
by several writers. Papers by Flint (1935, 1937) describe and map it.
The Vashon and Wisconsin glaciations probably occupied the same time
interval, although this has not certainly been established. In the
present report I have used the term "Vashon-Wisconsin" in speaking of
the entire period, or the glaciers both east and west of the Cascades
together. Vashon, alone, is restricted to western Washington and
Wisconsin to eastern Washington.
[Illustration: FIG. 17. Extent of Vashon-Wisconsin ice over
Washington. The Wisconsin and Vashon glaciers have been connected
through the Mount Rainier section of the Cascades because it is
thought that few or no mammalian species lived in the Cascades north
of Mount Rainier while the ice was in place. Data generalized from
Flint (1937), Bretz (1913), Culver (1936) and other sources.]
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