B. Brandon Curry

B. Brandon Curry
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | UIUC · Illinois State Geological Survey

PhD

About

149
Publications
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Publications

Publications (149)
Article
Full-text available
Based on calibrated radiocarbon ages of terrestrial gastropod shells (Succineidae, Discus , Stenotrema , Webbhelix ), the chronology of Peoria Silt (loess) deposition in the Central Lowlands is updated. These taxa provide reliable ages (within ~0.2 ka), based on historical shell dating, shell-organic age comparisons, and stratigraphic consistency....
Article
Silty lacustrine and paludal records spanning from the penultimate deglaciation (late Illinois Episode) to the present are preserved in kettles formed during marine isotope stage (MIS) 6 that lie adjacent to the MIS 2 Manito terrace along the valleys of the Sangamon and Illinois Rivers. Geochemical, mineralogical, particle-size, and chronological r...
Conference Paper
At the Brewster Creek site (northeastern Illinois, 41.9804, -88.2440) ostracode analogs indicate mean July and January temperatures of about 17.5 to 18.5° C and -12.5° C, respectively, during the Younger Dryas (ca. 12.6 - 11.0 cal kyr B.P.). These temperatures are about 4-5° C and about 9° C colder than modern values. In profiles of the reconstruct...
Poster
Full-text available
We invite all geoscientists, and especially those interested in midwestern paleoenvironments, to the 2023 Friends of the Pleistocene Field Conference (Midwestern cell). The authors of this poster form the core of a large research team that will lead this conference in central Lower Michigan, on Friday-Sunday, May 19-21, 2023. Logistical information...
Conference Paper
In support of the US GeoFramework Initiative, the Illinois State Geological Survey has been tasked by the United States Geological Survey to (a) characterize existing standards and guidelines used by individual states related to the visualization and dissemination of engineering geology, geotechnical, and land use data for map products and, (b) inv...
Chapter
Stephen C. Porter was an international leader in Quaternary science for several decades, having worked on most of the world’s continents and having led international organizations and a prominent interdisciplinary journal. His work influenced many individuals, and he played an essential role in linking Chinese Quaternary science with the broader in...
Article
The source of reworked Devonian algal “cysts” in last glacial maximum (LGM) sediment in the Gulf of Mexico is traced to their host black shales, which ring the southwestern Great Lakes. The source-to-sink pathway includes intermediate storage in fine-grained LGM glacial lacustrine sediment and till. The “cysts” are pelagic chlorophyllous algae (Tas...
Article
Geneva Lake in Wisconsin, USA, is > 20,000 years old and contains a 30-m thick lacustrine sediment record of mid-continent North American climate and environmental change. Here we describe a sediment record from Geneva Lake spanning the past 14,500 years. From scanning X-ray fluorescence, organic C and N concentrations and isotopes, X-ray diffracti...
Article
Twenty-four new optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon ages from sediment cores in nine lakes associated with the Shipshewana and Sturgis moraines in northern Indiana and southern Michigan estimate when recession of the Saginaw Lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet was underway in the southern Great Lakes region, USA. Average OSL ages o...
Article
Full-text available
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
Article
State Geological Surveys (SGSs) in the USA play vitally important roles, providing sound, unbiased scientific information to each state and the nation. Although implementation of each survey's scientific programme has evolved differently, these organizations are often the principal drivers of economic development, and they consult on policies for p...
Article
Full-text available
Shoreline erosion can transition freshwater coastal wetlands from carbon sinks to carbon sources. No studies have explored the impacts of coastal geomorphic processes on freshwater wetland carbon budgets. To do so, we modified a saltmarsh carbon budget model for application in freshwater coastal wetlands. We validated the model with data from a sho...
Article
This field guide provides an updated synthesis of the stratigraphy and chronology of glacial deposits in central Indiana near the southern limit of glaciation in the midcontinent. Central Indiana contains evidence of multiple glaciations-deposits from the last two glaciations (Oxygen Isotope Stages [OIS] 2 [Wisconsin Episode] and 6 [Illinois Episod...
Article
This volume, prepared for the 130th Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Indianapolis, includes compelling science and field trips in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio. A wealth of geologic and human history collides in the Midwest, a confluence that led to the growth of America's industry over the past two centuries...
Article
Linked and complex relationships of runoff from deglacial sedimentary systems to ocean basins likely contribute to the murky global signals of Heinrich Stadial 1 (ca. 17.5-14.5 cal. kyr B.P.). However, precise chronologies linking meltwater sources, transport, and oceanic sinks are lacking for this period. A probability density function of new and...
Article
Full-text available
The Neotoma Paleoecology Database is a community-curated data resource that supports interdisciplinary global change research by enabling broad-scale studies of taxon and community diversity, distributions, and dynamics during the large environmental changes of the past. By consolidating many kinds of data into a common repository, Neotoma lowers c...
Chapter
Based on the interpretation of 893 finite radiocarbon ages, we have revised the time-distance diagram for the Lake Michigan Lobe of the Laurentide ice sheet in Illinois. The data set contains 507 reliable ages determined using standard benzene synthesis–liquid scintillation, including “legacy” ages determined in the 1950s and 1960s at the inception...
Article
Full-text available
The chronology and cause of millennial depositional oscillations within last glacial loess of the Central Lowlands of the United States are uncertain. Here, we present a new age model that indicates the Peoria Silt along the Illinois River Valley accumulated episodically from ~28,500 to 16,000 cal yr BP, as the Lake Michigan Lobe margin fluctuated...
Chapter
The term “Paleosol” refers to a fossil soil, or remnants thereof, either preserved at modern land surface or buried by layers of younger sediment. The study of Paleosols is referred to as paleopedology. Paleosols preserve evidence of past physical and chemical weathering (such as reddening due to oxidation of iron), macro‐biological activity (such...
Article
During the Sangamon Episode, North America occasionally experienced warm climates. At Hopwood Farm, IL, a small kettle lake filled with sediment after the Illinois Episode glaciers retreated from southern Illinois. To date those deposits, 14 mollusc samples newly collected with associated sediment from three depths at Hopwood Farm were dated by sta...
Conference Paper
The last Northern Hemisphere ice sheet margins retreated in the late phase of the Last Glacial Maximum, peaked at 19 thousand calibrated years ago (ka) in response to large-scale changes in all components of the climate system. This recession is presumably to have weakened the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation via freshwater input trigger...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Time-distance diagrams of continental ice lobes indicate the relative position of active ice margins over time. They are useful for indicating periods of interaction with adjacent lobes, documenting minimum and maximum ages that constrain the relative age of ice margin fluctuations, and indicating relative rates of ice advance. Over the past 8 year...
Article
Full-text available
Nonglacial deposits of Middle Wisconsin age are being discovered with increased frequency across a broad region of southern Ontario, Canada, and provide strong evidence for a time of significant ice withdrawal from the lower Great Lakes region. With each new discovery, a refined understanding of regional climatic and paleoecological environments is...
Article
Full-text available
During the last deglaciation temperatures over midcontinental North America warmed dramatically through the Bølling-Allerød, underwent a cool period associated with the Younger-Dryas and then reverted to warmer, near modern temperatures during the early Holocene. However, paleo proxy records of the hydroclimate of this period have presented diverge...
Article
Full-text available
Ice-walled lake plains (IWLPs) are rounded, flat-topped mounds that formed in stagnant ice environments along the margins of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. We conducted detailed morphometric and statistical analyses of the shape, size, and orientation of more than 400 IWLPs identified from aerial photos aided with LiDAR data in DeKalb County, Illinois,...
Article
Evidence of the Kankakee Torrent (Ekblaw and Athy, 1925) includes boulder bars formed on a scoured bedrock surface west of Kankakee, Illinois, and overflow channels that connect several moraine-dammed basins (Wauponsee, Watseka, and Pontiac; Willman and Payne, 1942). Geomorphic evidence of a large scale flood event in the Illinois Valley includes f...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Perry Mastodon (Mammut americanum) was excavated in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, in October, 1963, immediately after it was discovered during construction of a residential pond. The property is now part of the Churchill Woods Forest Preserve. Little attention was paid to the geological setting during the eight-day excavation by the Wheaton College Geo...
Article
The development of Mutual Climatic Range (MCR) methods for ostracods has included the estimation of marine bottom-water palaeotemperatures, but it has focused mainly on the use of non-marine ostracods to infer past air temperatures. The Delorme analogue MCR method, using only those components of a fossil assemblage that co-exist today, has yielded...
Article
A North American Combined Ostracode Database (NACODe) is introduced, comprising ostracod occurrence, environmental and climatic data from Canada (Delorme Database, 6719 sites) and the United States (North American Non-Marine Ostracode Database, 609 sites). NACODe's ostracod data are binary (present/not present) and include 108 species with three or...
Article
Few examples of natural forest remain near the Mediterranean coast. Therefore, it is difficult to study how coastal forests respond to climatic change or their resilience to human impact.We developed new sedimentary record of Holocene vegetation and fire history at Lago Preola, a coastal lake in southwestern Sicily (Italy). In order to verify the e...
Article
Full-text available
The timing of speleogenesis of two of Illinois’ longest caves (Fogelpole Cave and Illinois Caverns) located in southwestern Illinois’ sinkhole plain was investigated by integrating differential erosion and datable sediment and speleothem deposits within the caves. Five locations in the two caves, and three different methods were used to estimate in...
Article
During the Quaternary, Illinois was glaciated by the Laurentide Ice Sheet at least four times. New OSL ages on sand and gravel deposits indicate the penultimate glaciation occurred from ca.180-150 ka. New radiocarbon ages on fossils in ice-walled lake plains have refined the deglacial chronology of the last glaciation.
Article
From 18,000 to 15,000 years (ka) ago, during the broad Heinrich Stadial 1 interval, the Laurentide ice sheet (LIS) began its largest retreat in North America. However, climatic conditions near ice margins during this recession are poorly understood due to a lack of studies focusing on paleoenvironmental proxies in corresponding sedimentary records....
Article
Full-text available
The glacial history of southern Minnesota, based on the surficial deposits of the late glacial Des Moines lobe and older deposits correlated to Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 16, is documented in exposures along tributaries to the Minnesota River. A recently formalized stratigraphy defines and correlates these tills on the basis of their texture, lith...
Article
A revised chronological framework for the deglaciation of the Lake Michigan lobe of the south-central Laurentide Ice Sheet is presented based on radiocarbon ages of plant macrofossils archived in the sediments of low-relief ice-walled lakes. We analyze the precision and accuracy of 15 AMS 14C ages of plant macrofossils obtained from a single ice-wa...
Article
The ionic composition and salinity of Lake Manitoba and its late-glacial precursor, Lake Agassiz, changed significantly over the past 11 000 years. The paleochemical record reported here is based on modern analog environments of ostracodes identified in a new 14.5 m core from southern Lake Manitoba. The ionic composition of Lake Manitoba today is d...
Article
Pollen and ostracode records from lake sediments spanning from the penultimate to the last glaciation from south-central Illinois provide key evidence for past climates in central North America. The records come from kettle basins formed in Illinois Episode till. The records are sandwiched at the base and top by ``glacial'' biozones containing Pice...
Article
Low dissolved oxygen during the summer and early fall controls profundal continental ostracode distribution in Crystal Lake (McHenry County), Illinois, favoring Cypria ophthalmica and Physocypria globula at water depths from 6 to 13 m. These species also thrived in the lake’s profundal zone from 14,165 to 9600 calendar year before present (cal yr B...
Article
The “type” DeKalb mounds of northeastern Illinois, USA (42.0°N, −88.7°W), are formed of basal sand and gravel overlain by rhythmically bedded fines, and weathered sand and gravel. Generally from 2 to 7 m thick, the fines include abundant fossils of ostracodes and uncommon leaves and stems of tundra plants. Rare chironomid head capsules, pillclam sh...
Article
Thirteen new chronometric dates for Illinois proboscideans are considered in relation to well-dated pollen records from northeastern and central Illinois. These dates span an interval from 21,228 to 12,944 cal BP. When compared to pollen spectra, it is evident that Mammut americanum inhabited spruce (Picea) and black ash (Fraxinus nigra) forest dur...
Article
The Fulton Section, along the Mississippi River in western Tennessee, USA, is a 1 km continuous exposure (∼20 m vertically) of Quaternary fluvial and lacustrine deposits, inset within Eocene sediments and buried by thick loess. Fossiliferous slackwater lake sediments record maximum aggradation during the last two major glaciations, with deposition...
Article
Full-text available
The recurrence interval of large New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) earthquakes is uncertain because of the limited number and likely incomplete nature of the record of dated seismic events. Data on paleoseismicity in this area is necessary for refining estimates of a recurrence interval for these earthquakes and for characterizing the geophysical natu...
Article
The onset of deglaciation of the Lake Michigan lobe (LML) in the western Great Lakes region of North America is well-defined by radiocarbon ages from terrestrial plant material that was buried by proglacial lake sediment and till. A small portion of the lobe began its final retreat during the Marengo Phase at about 24,780 C-14 yr BP (29,630 cal yr...
Article
The Farmdale–Sangamon Geosol pedocomplex consists of the Sangamon Geosol and the overlying Farmdale Geosol, which form the most extensive terrestrial record of the last interglacial to glacial transition in the Midwest United States. The geosol complex formed for upwards of 100 ka, extending from the end of MIS 6 through 4 for the Sangamon Geosol,...