Walter L Loope
Science and Products
Coastal geology and recent origins for Sand Point, Lake Superior
Sand Point is a small cuspate foreland located along the southeastern shore of Lake Superior within Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore near Munising, Michigan. Park managers’ concerns for the integrity of historic buildings at the northern periphery of the point during the rising lake levels in the mid-1980s greatly elevated the priority of...
Fisher, Timothy G.; Krantz, David E.; Castaneda, Mario R.; Loope, Walter L.; Jol, Harry M.; Goble, Ronald J.; Higley, Melinda C.; DeWald, Samantha; Hansen, Paul A previously unrecognized path of early Holocene base flow and elevated discharge from Lake Minong to Lake Chippewa across eastern Upper Michigan
It has long been hypothesized that flux of fresh meltwater from glacial Lake Minong in North America's Superior Basin to the North Atlantic Ocean triggered rapid climatic shifts during the early Holocene. The spatial context of recent support for this idea demands a reevaluation of the exit point of meltwater from the Superior Basin. We used...
Loope, Walter L.; Jol, Harry M.; Fisher, Timothy G.; Blewett, William L.; Loope, Henry M.; Legg, Robert J. Drought drove forest decline and dune building in eastern upper Michigan, USA, as the upper Great Lakes became closed basins
Current models of landscape response to Holocene climate change in midcontinent North America largely reconcile Earth orbital and atmospheric climate forcing with pollen-based forest histories on the east and eolian chronologies in Great Plains grasslands on the west. However, thousands of sand dunes spread across 12,000 km2 in eastern upper...
Loope, Walter L.; Loope, Henry M.; Goble, Ronald J.; Fisher, Timothy G.; Lytle, David E.; Legg, Robert J.; Wysocki, Douglas A.; Hanson, Paul R.; Young, Aaron R. Evidence for an eolian origin for the silt-enriched soil mantles on the glaciated uplands of eastern Upper Michigan, USA
We provide textural, geochemical, and mineralogical data on a thin, silty deposit that unconformably mantles glaciated uplands in the eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Previous research on this deposit, which we hypothesize to be loess, is nonexistent. The uplands were islands or narrow peninsulas within one or more glacial lakes. We compare...
Schaetzl, R.J.; Loope, W.L. Big lake records preserved in a little lake's sediment: An example from Silver Lake, Michigan, USA
We reconstruct postglacial lake-level history within the Lake Michigan basin using soil stratigraphy, ground-penetrating radar (GPR), sedimentology and 14C data from the Silver Lake basin, which lies adjacent to Lake Michigan. Stratigraphy in nine vibracores recovered from the floor of Silver Lake appears to reflect fluctuation of water...
Fisher, T.G.; Loope, W.L.; Pierce, W.; Jol, H.M. Aeolian sand preserved in Silver Lake: a new signal of Holocene high stands of Lake Michigan
Aeolian sand within lake sediment from Silver Lake, Michigan can be used as a proxy for the timing of high lake levels of Lake Michigan.We demonstrate that the sand record from Silver Lake plotted as percent weight is in-phase with the elevation curve of Lake Michigan since the mid-Holocene Nipissing Phase. Because fluctuations in Lake Michigan's...
Fisher, Timothy G.; Loope, Walter L. Lake level variability in Silver Lake, Michigan: a response to fluctuations in lake levels of Lake Michigan
Sediment from Silver Lake, Michigan, can be used to constrain the timing and elevation of Lake Michigan during the Nipissing transgression. Silver Lake is separated from Lake Michigan by a barrier/dune complex and the Nipissing, Calumet, and Glenwood shorelines of Lake Michigan are expressed landward of this barrier. Two Vibracores were taken from...
Fisher, Timothy G.; Loope, Walter L. A Holocene history of dune-mediated landscape change along the southeastern shore of Lake Superior
Causal links that connect Holocene high stands of Lake Superior with dune building, stream damming and diversion and reservoir impoundment and infilling are inferred from a multidisciplinary investigation of a small watershed along the SE shore of Lake Superior. Radiocarbon ages of wood fragments from in-place stumps and soil O horizons, recovered...
Loope, Walter L.; Fisher, Timothy G.; Jol, Harry M.; Anderton, John B.; Blewett, William L. Dominance of an ~150-year cycle of sand-supply change in late Holocene dune-building along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan
Outcrops of buried soils on lake-plains and glacial headlands along Lake Michigan's eastern shore suggest that periodic dune-building has occurred there after relatively long (≥100 yr) periods of low sand supply. We located, described, and radiocarbon dated 75 such buried soils that crop out in 32 coastal dune fields beside the lake. We assume...
Loope, W.L.; Arbogast, A.F. Maximum-limiting ages of Lake Michigan coastal dunes: Their correlation with Holocene lake level history
Coastal geomorphology along the Great Lakes has long been linked with lake-level history. Some of the most spectacular landforms along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan are high-relief dunes that mantle lake terraces. It has been assumed that these dunes developed during the Nipissing high stand of ancestral Lake Michigan. This hypothesis was...
Arbogast, Alan F.; Loope, Walter L. Habitat change in a perched dune system along Lake Superior
Episodes of habitat change, driven by changes in levels of the Great Lakes, must be considered when assessing human effects upon coastal vegetation and rare species. Paleoecological studies, baseline inventories, and long-term monitoring programs within the Grand Sable Dunes, a perched-dune system along Lake Superior, provide a window on...
Mac, Michael J.; Opler, Paul A.; Puckett Haecker, Catherine E.; Doran, Peter D.; Loope, Walter L.; McEachern, A. Kathryn Human versus lightning ignition of presettlement surface fires in costal pine forests of the upper Great Lakes
To recover direct evidence of surface fires before European settlement, we sectioned fire-scarred logging-era stumps and trees in 39 small, physically isolated sand patches along the Great Lakes coast of northern Michigan and northern Wisconsin. While much information was lost to postharvest fire and stump deterioration, 147 fire-free intervals...
Loope, Walter L.; Anderton, John B.