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

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Cited articles

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Alley, R. B., Mayewski, P. A., Sowers, T., Stuiver, M., Taylor, K. C., and Clark, P. U.: Holocene climatic instability: A prominent, widespread event 8200 yr ago, Geology, 25, 483–486, https://doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613(1997)025<0483:HCIAPW>2.3.CO;2, 1997. 
Anderson, L.: Holocene record of precipitation seasonality from lake calcite δ18O in the central Rocky Mountains, United States, Geology, 39, 211–214, https://doi.org/10.1130/G31575.1, 2011. 
Anderson, L.: Rocky Mountain hydroclimate: Holocene variability and the role of insolation, ENSO, and the North American Monsoon, Global Planet. Change, 92–93, 198–208, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2012.05.012, 2012. 
Anderson, L., Berkelhammer, M., Barron, J. A., Steinman, B. A., Finney, B. P., and Abbott, M. B.: Lake oxygen isotopes as recorders of North American Rocky Mountain hydroclimate: Holocene patterns and variability at multi-decadal to millennial time scales, Global Planet. Change, 137, 131–148, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2015.12.021, 2016. 
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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.