CHapter 6 Quaternary Vegetation and depositional History of st . CatHerines island Fredrick

the Quaternary vegetation history of the southeastern united states has not been well studied, particularly in comparison to more northerly regions of north america, and this is even more apparent on the coastal plain of georgia (e.g., Watts, 1971; rich and spackman, 1979; rich 1984a, 1984b, 1996; rich and pirkle, 1998). the coastal region of georgia is characterized by a string of barrier islands that formed during the late pleistocene and have been continually modified during the Holocene through depositional and erosional processes. these processes continue to shape the geomorphology and hydrology of the barrier island region, resulting in a dynamic mosaic of salt, brackish, and freshwater marshes and sandy, well-drained upland soils dominated by southern pine and oak forests. st. Catherines island is one of the least disturbed of the barrier islands along the georgia coastline, and has been the subject of a suite of studies over the past several decades aimed at better understanding its geological development, current vegetation, and vegetation history. for example, maps and descriptions of the principal plant communities currently on the island have been developed (somes and ashbaugh, 1972; Coile and Jones, 1988; reitz et al., 2008) and ethnobotanical studies have revealed information on the composition of plant communities prior to european disturbance (thomas, 2008). However, a longerterm perspective on the vegetation and developmental history of the island has been provided by lithostratigraphic studies of pollen preserved in a range of depositional environments. the following report is a distillation and summary of the palynological work performed on st. Catherines island over the past decade. the distribution of sites is scattered, the ages of deposits are not systematically distributed, and the available records are discontinuous, so this compilation cannot be seen as the result of a comprehensive study. However, the accumulation of data of different ages from many localities shows that the sediments of st. Catherines island contain a wealth of palynological and paleoecological information that bears on our understanding of ancient terrestrial ecosystems of the georgia coastal plain.