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Timing And Extent Of Late Quaternary Paleolakes In The Trans-Pecos Closed Basin, West Texas And South-Central New Mexico, David Wilkins, Donald Currey

David E. Wilkins

The Trans-Pecos Closed Basin is a hydrographically closed region covering 20,000 km centered on Salt Basin, 160 km east of El Paso, Texas. Geomorphic and limnetic evidence have been used to identify four major highstands for Lake King during the last glacial maximum (LGM). Additional geomorphic features from a second, recently identified, paleolake, Lake Sacramento, have been found in the Beargrass subbasin, a nested subbasin approximately 75 km northwest of Salt Basin. Radiocarbon ages of the organic material in Lake King sediments date four abrupt climate changes and rapid lacustrine transgressions during the LGM with a quasi-periodicity of 2000 yr. …