Use of Reworked Pollen and Spores for determining the Pleistocene - Recent and the Intra-Pleistocene Boundaries

Abstract

DURING July of 1962 a two-year palynological investigation of continental shelf and ocean bottom sediments off the eastern coast of the United States was undertaken. (Samples were made available through the courtesy of Lamont Geological Observatory and Woods Hole Oceano-graphic Institution.) Later, samples from a suite of cores collected between Argentina and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge were also added to this investigation of pollen and spore distribution in marine sediments. A total of 349 samples from 21 cores was collected by me. All samples collected were processed and examined. Only three of the 21 cores sampled proved to be completely barren of pollen and spores. All the other cores contained at least some productive samples and in many of the cores most of the processed samples yielded pollen and spores.