The Latest Pleistocene & Recent Vegetation of the Bishop's Cap, South-central New Mexico
Van Devender TR and Everitt BL. 1977. The Latest Pleistocene & Recent Vegetation of the Bishop's Cap, South-central New Mexico. The Southwestern Naturalist. 22(3):337-352
Three late Pleistocene packrat middens from Bishop's Cap, Dona Ana County, New Mexico, record a xeric woodland community about 10,500 radiocarbon years ago. A total of 118 species in 35 families of plants are recorded for Bishop's Cap today. The paleocommunity probably represents a terminal Pleistocene period close to the transition to Holocene climates and vegetations. It is correlated with the Wisconsin 2 zone in the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas. The absence of characteristic Chihuahuan Desert plants in the fossil flora suggests that the modern Chihuahuan Desert communities appeared after 10,500 years ago.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Van Devender, Thomas; Everitt, Benjamin
- Units
- ORPI
- Keywords
- Paleobotany