BSSL/BSIP

Site Name: 
Brown's Sand Pit
State: 
Location: 
Town of Pines, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore
County: 
Lake
Taxa: 
Elevation: 
189.00m
Date Ranges (Cal yr 2σ): 
End: 
13 200 BP
Start: 
13 500 BP
End: 
12 700 BP
Start: 
13 080 BP
Site Notes: 

• Spruce wetlands along the shorelines of postglacial Lake Chicago

• Two-Creekan and Younger Dryas-age tree-ring records

The Brown’s Sandpit Site (BSP) is located adjacent and immediately south of Town of Pines in northern Indiana. The site was originally discovered by Ken Cole of the USGS in the 1980s, who collected some wood samples, including stumps. The dates indicate wood as old as Two Creeks age and as young as Younger Dryas age (Fig. 1). We visited the site on June 2, 2004, and May 28 and June 11, 2005, and excavated over 50 wood specimens. Twenty-one spruce specimens were crossdated into a 173-year and a 119-year tree-ring width records dated with carbon-14 ca. 13,000 and 13,400 years ago, respectively.

Present-day view of the site.
Excavation of spruce wood from lacustrine sand deposits.
Tow Creekan tree-ring width chronology of spruce (low plot) and its sample size (top plot).
Range of radiocarbon dates derived from the site wood specimens.