Figure 3. Map of part of southeastern Alaska showing present-day distribution of major glacier systems. Click on map to see Figure 4, a more detailed view of the Alexander Archipelago.

Figure 5. Map of part of southeastern Alaska during the last glacial maximum. Dark green areas are possible lands that escaped glaciation. These "refugia" supported tundra, shrub and subalpine vegetation. White dots in Gulf of Alaska indicate abundant icebergs.

Figure 6. The Juneau icefield in the coast mountains of southeastern Alaska provides an image of what most of southeast Alaska looked like during the late Wisconsin glaciation ("ice age"). Photo by Tom Ager.

Figure 7. Southeastern Alaska includes more than one thousand islands of the Alexander Archipelago. During the last major glaciation (about 26,000 to 13,000 years ago) glaciers filled the fiords and covered most of the islands. Photo by Tom Ager.

Figure 8. Coastal rainforest covers much of southeastern Alaska. Dominant tree types include western hemlock, Sitka spruce, mountain hemlock, shore pine, yellow cedar, and (in southern southeast) red cedar. Photo by Tom Ager.

Figure 9. Sub-alpine to alpine zone transition and limestone outcrops, central Dall Island at 670m (2200') altitude. Photo by Tom Ager.

Figure 10. Transportation in southeastern Alaska is by boat, floatplane, helicopter, truck (often on logging roads) or on foot. Photo shows Forest Service vessel "Chugach" in Sandy Bay, SW Baranof Island. Photo by Paul Carrara.

Figure 11. A portable floating platform, anchored in place, allows us to obtain sediment cores from lakes to study past environmental changes. Photo by Dan Muhs at Cavern Lake, Prince of Wales Island.

Figure 12. Peat coring near Sandy Bay, southwestern Baranof Island yielded a record of vegetation changes spanning nearly 12,000 years. In photo, left to right, Josh Been, Larry Phillips, and Paul Carrara. Photo by Tom Ager.

Vertebrate fossil assemblages obtained from caves in southeastern Alaska by Tim Heaton and colleagues indicate that the terrestrial faunas in the region that became established soon after deglaciation included some mammals that no longer live in southeastern Alaska, such as caribou. Other mammals were more widely distributed in the region than they are today, such as brown bears. These early postglacial faunas existed at a time when tundra and subalpine vegetation was far more widespread than today, and lowlands were apparently dominated by open forests of shore pines, alder thickets, and a ground cover heavily dominated by ferns. The gradual establishment of coastal forests of Sitka spruce and hemlocks during the early Holocene provided habitats more favorable for black bear and Sitka deer. Brown bears disappeared from many islands in southeastern Alaska during the early Holocene, probably because of the loss of most tundra and subalpine habitats on those islands. (Read more in Tom Ager's 1998 field season notes and Ice Age Paleontology of Southeast Alaska by Timothy Heaton.)

Figure 13. Fossil black bear skeleton in El Capitan Cave, Prince of Wales Island is about 10,750 years old. Caves in southeast Alaska have yielded a rich vertebrate fossil record of mammals, birds, and fish. Some fossils are more than 50,000 years old. For an enlarged view click on photo. Photo by Tim Heaton.

Figure 14. Eastern coast of Prince of Wales Island looking towards Clarence Strait (a deep glacial fiord) and Coast Mountains beyond. Photo by Tom Ager.