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Holocene histories of two polygonal peatlands in the low arctic of south-central Nunavut, Canada, are reconstructed using plant macrofossil and pollen stratigraphies of four cores. Peat accumulation began in both basins between 7600 and 8000?cal. yr BP, within less than 1000 years after deglaciation. Mid- to late-Holocene vegetation changes recorded in the peat cores may be related to permafrost aggradation, associated with a regional cooling trend inferred from a nearby lake sediment record. However, differences in the timing of changes among the peatland coring sites indicate that local autogenic processes have also played an important role. Peat accumulation rates have decreased considerably in the past 3000 to 5000 years compared to the early Holocene. Our results illustrate the complexity of peatland development and peat accumulation dynamics in areas of permafrost, resulting from the important influences of both internal autogenic factors and external environmental forces such as climatic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bracketing ages on marine-freshwater transitions in isolation basins extending from sea level to 100 m elevation on Lasqueti Island, and data from shallow marine cores and outcrops on eastern Vancouver Island, constrain late Pleistocene and Holocene sea-level change in the central Strait of Georgia. Relative sea level fell from 150 m elevation to about -15 m from 14 000 cal. yr BP to 11 500 cal. yr BP. Basins at higher elevations exhibit abrupt changes in diatom assemblages at the marine-freshwater transition. At lower elevations an intervening brackish phase suggests slower rates of uplift. Relative sea level rose to about +1 m about 9000 cal. yr BP to 8500 cal. yr BP, and then slowly fell to the modern datum. The mean rate of glacio-isostatic rebound in the first millennium after deglaciation was about 0.11 m a -1 , similar to the peak rate at the centres of the former Laurentide and Fennoscandian ice complexes. The latter feature smooth, exponential-style declines in sea level up to the present day, whereas in the study area the uplift rate dropped to less than one-tenth of its initial value in only about 2500 years. Slower, more deeply seated isostatic recovery generated residual uplift rates of <0.01 m a -1 in the early Holocene after the late-Pleistocene wasting of the Cordilleran ice sheet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]