Maximum-Limiting
Ages of Lake Michigan Coastal Dunes:
Their
Correlation with Holocene Lake Level History
Alan F. Arbogast and Walter L. Loope
Coastal geomorphology along the
Great Lakes has long been linked with lake-level history. Some of the most spectacular landforms along
the eastern shore of Lake Michigan are high-relief dunes that mantle lake
terraces. It has been assumed that
these dunes developed during the Nipissing high stand of ancestral Lake
Michigan. This hypothesis was tested
through stratigraphic analyses and radiocarbon dating of buried soils at four
sites between Manistee and Grand Haven, Michigan.
At each site, thick deposits of
eolian sand overlie late-Pleistocene lacustrine sands. Moderately developed Spodosols (Entic
Haplorthods) formed in the uppermost part of the lake sediments are buried by
thick dune sand at three sites. At the
fourth locality, a similar soil occurs in a very thin (1.3 m) unit of eolian
sand buried deep within a dune. These
soils indicate long-term (~ 4,000 years) stability of the lake deposits
following subaerial exposure.
Radiocarbon dating of charcoal in the buried sola indicates massive dune
construction began between 4,900 and 4,500 cal. yr B.P. at the Nordhouse Dunes
site, between 4,300 and 3,900 cal. yr B.P. at the Jackson and Nugent Quarries,
and between 3,300 and 2,900 cal. yr B.P. at Rosy Mound. Given these ages, it can be concluded that
dune building at one site occurred during the Nipissing high stand but that the
other dunes developed later. Although
lake levels generally fell after the Nipissing, it appears that dune
construction may have resulted from small increases in lake level and
destabilization of lake-terrace bluffs.