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Environmental change and oyster colonization within the Hudson River estuary linked to Holocene climate

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Abstract

Geophysical mapping and sampling data provide a record of changing environmental and faunal conditions within the Hudson River estuary during the mid- to late Holocene. On the shallow, broad marginal flats of the mesohaline Hudson, fossil oyster beds (Crassostrea virginica) are found exposed on the river bottom and buried by sediment. The shallowest beds are well imaged in chirp sub-bottom and side-scan sonar data and form discrete flow-perpendicular bands, 0.6–1.0 km wide and up to 3 km long, which cover 30% of the river bottom. Radiocarbon-dated sediment cores indicate oysters thrived within two time periods from ~500–2,400 and ~5,600–6,100 cal. years b.p. Sediment and physical property data indicate a changing depositional regime consistent with the oyster chronology. Similar changes in oyster presence are found in local shell midden sites of the Lower Hudson Valley as well as elsewhere along the Atlantic coast, and may reflect climatic controls associated with warm–cool cycles during the Holocene. Oysters flourished during the mid-Holocene warm period, disappeared with the onset of cooler climate at 4,000–5,000 cal. years b.p., and returned during warmer conditions of the late Holocene. The most recent demise of oysters within the Hudson at 500–900 cal. years b.p. may have accompanied the Little Ice Age.

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Acknowledgements

Our research was supported by the Hudson River Foundation for Science and Environmental Research Inc. under grant 003/00A to SMC and REB, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation that provided funding for the primary data collection from the Environmental Protection Fund through the Hudson River Estuary Program. We thank D. Strayer, J. Bratton, D. Belknap, P. Vogt and R. McBride for their comments, which improved the manuscript. We are greatly indebted to E. Blair and J. Ladd for their ongoing enthusiastic support of this work. We thank Captain John Lipscomb, Riverkeeper, and the captain and crew of the L.F. Walford, New Jersey Marine Consortium, for excellent support during survey operations. Orange and Rockland County Gas and Electric generously provided access to their vibracores and supported acquisition of SD30 for scientific goals. We thank Tom Guilderson of Lawrence Livermore National Labs and Irka Hajadas of the Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Zurich for radiocarbon analyses. Nicole Anest of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Deep-Sea Sample Repository carried out physical property analyses. Support for the collection and curating facilities of the LDEO core repository, where all sample material used in this study is archived, is provided by the National Science Foundation (grant OCE00-02380) and the Office of Naval Research (grant N00014-02-1-0073). Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory contribution #6595.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Box 1000, Palisades, NY, 10964, USA

    S. M. Carbotte, R. E. Bell, W. B. F. Ryan, C. McHugh, A. Slagle, F. Nitsche & J. Rubenstone

  2. Queens College, CUNY, Flushing, NY, 11367, USA

    C. McHugh

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  1. S. M. Carbotte
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  2. R. E. Bell
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Correspondence to S. M. Carbotte.

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Carbotte, S.M., Bell, R.E., Ryan, W.B.F. et al. Environmental change and oyster colonization within the Hudson River estuary linked to Holocene climate. Geo-Mar Lett 24, 212–224 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-004-0179-9

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