Articles | Volume 18, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1109-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1109-2022
Research article
 | 
23 May 2022
Research article |  | 23 May 2022

Expression of the “4.2 ka event” in the southern Rocky Mountains, USA

David T. Liefert and Bryan N. Shuman

Data sets

ighway 130 Lake, Wyoming 11,700 Year Stable Isotope and Carbonate Data D. T. Liefert and B. N. Shuman https://doi.org/10.25921/dtev-ht06

Download
Short summary
A large drought potentially occurred roughly 4200 years ago, but its impacts and significance are unclear. We find new evidence in carbonate oxygen isotopes from a mountain lake in southeastern Wyoming, southern Rocky Mountains, of an abrupt reduction in effective moisture (precipitation–evaporation) or snowpack from approximately 4200–4000 years ago. The drought's prominence among a growing number of sites in the North American interior suggests it was a regionally substantial climate event.