Bering Strait Flooded Earlier than Previously Thought
16.10.2006 - Other
Scientists have found new evidence that the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia flooded into the Arctic Ocean about 11,000 years ago, or about 1,000 years earlier than widely believed. This event closed off the land bridge thought to be the major route for human migration from Asia to the Americas.
Lead author Lloyd Keigwin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and colleagues from WHOI, Neal Driscoll from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and Julie Brigham-Grette of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst report results from three new core sites north and west of Alaska in the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean. At these locations, accumulation of sediment is more than 100 times greater than at previous sites, allowing identification of climate changes that were previously unseen.
"Although we have only a few cores, this is the first evidence of flooding of the Chukchi Sea by 11,000 years ago, at least 1,000 years before previously thought," Keigwin said. "The new data are also consistent with data from other recent studies, and show potential for developing ocean and climate histories of this region."
