Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by HORROCKS, M. Articles by D’COSTA, D. M. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

STRATIGRAPHIC PALYNOLOGY IN POROUS SOILS IN HUMID CLIMATES: AN EXAMPLE FROM POUERUA, NORTHERN NEW ZEALAND

Centre for Archaeological Research and School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92–019, Auckland, New Zealand

DONNA M. D’COSTA

School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92–019, Auckland, New Zealand

Palynological data are presented for a basaltic soil from an archaeological site in northern New Zealand. The profile encompasses two successive soils at the base of Pouerua crater where the initial soil was buried during an erosion and depositional event. The soils have not been disturbed directly by people, and mixing by bioturbating invertebrates has been minimal resulting in a crude stratification of percolated pollen and microscopic charcoal. Forest in the base of the crater escaped the large-scale anthropogenic burning on the outer slopes of the cone and its surrounds indicated by earlier studies. Despite high soil porosity in a humid climate at Pouerua, the rate of pollen percolation in the crater soils is low, occurring at < 1 cm in 17.86 years (< 0.056 cm per year). These preliminary results show that soils with high infiltration rates in humid climates are potentially stratified and thus useful in providing records of local environments.