St. Paul

Alaska, USA

climate and environmental reconstructions in the Bering strait: insights from St. Paul Island (Alaska)

St. Paul is an isolated island in the Bering Strait, Alaska. The island is famous for its late-surviving population of woolly mammoth. Previous studies have been carried out on a core obtained from a lake in the central part of the island have focused on multiple proxies aiming to constrain the timing of mammoth extinction. The research point to the effects of sea-level rise and drier climates on freshwater scarcity as the primary extinction driver. Nevertheless, much more can be learned on the environmental conditions that prevailed on the island following deglaciation and isolation from the main continent.