129-59 Stumped No More- Past Precipitation Changes in Clinton County, KY

Abstract:

Natural disasters, especially flooding events, are increasingly common in Kentucky and place humans and infrastructure in harm’s way. One of the primary goals of CLIMBS (Climate Resilience through Multidisciplinary Big Data Learning, Prediction, and Building Response Systems) Project 2: Paleoperspectives is to build a record of paleoprecipitation regime end-members that can be applied to engineer infrastructure and human resiliency to flooding events. As a test of results from studies examining floodplain sediments, paleoprecipitation records from ponded environments must also be examined. Stump (also called Burchett) Pond in Clinton County, Kentucky occurs within a general region of marshes and wetlands developed on the St. Louis Limestone northwest of Albany, KY between present-day Lake Cumberland and Dale Hollow Lake. The pond falls into the eastern highland rim ecoregion and is surrounded by oak-hickory forests.  Short cores held by the Kentucky Geological Survey were sub-sampled for palynology; sub-samples were processed using low-acid methods to ensure recovery not only of chemically resistant pollen, but also non-pollen palynomorphs, including fungi and arthropod remains. Past rainfall regimes were reconstructed using pollen presence/absence data in the CREST for R package. Ecological groupings present were reconstructed using cluster analysis in PAST.  A diverse and abundant palynoflora was recovered. Arthropod and fungal remains are common, and charcoal is very sparse. The overall flora is consistent with deposition in ponded and wetland environments, while the pollen assemblage, specifically, provides insight into changes in rainfall seasonality.

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