POLLEN ANALYSIS OF FOUR CORES FROM THE MISSISSIPPI ALLUVIAL VALLEY NEAR CHARLESTON, MISSOURI

This pollen study was undertaken at the northern margin of the northern
Mississippi Valley in the Eastern Lowlands, an area which offers unique
conditions for studying the paleoenvironment. Four pollen columns were
collected in the vicinity of Charleston, Missouri, immediately south of the
present confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Both late Pleisto
cene braided stream deposits and Holocene flood plain deposits are noted in
this area. Location of the study area at the hinge point between the erosional
Mississippi River to the north and the depositional Mississippi River
to the south provides a unique circumstance most likely to preserve evidence
of catastrophic floods associated with deglaciation of the North American
continent (Porter 1991).