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A New Record of Ringed Seal (Pusa hispida) from the Late Pleistocene Champlain Sea and Comments on Its Age and Paleoenvironment

The Champlain Sea, the most recent interior seaway of northeastern North America, resulted from late Pleistocene recession of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) and subsequent isostatic depression of the Champlain and St. Lawrence valleys (Gadd, 1988; Rayburn et al., 2007; Cronin et al., 2008, 2012). This sea existed for about 4000 years, from 13.1 to 9.0 ka (Cronin et al., 2008), and Champlain Sea sediments contain abundant marine microfauna (e.g., foraminifera, ostracods; Cronin, 1988; Hunt and Rathburn, 1988) and macrofauna (e.g., bivalves, mammals; Harington, 1988; McAllister et al., 1988; Rodrigues, 1988). Here we report the discovery of a new specimen of phocid seal from southern Champlain Sea sediments (Fig. 1), and its age. We also report the age of a previously described Phoca vitulina (harbor seal) from a nearby locality (Ray, 1983), and discuss the paleoenvironmental implications of the geographic location and ages of these two phocid specimens. Institutional Abbreviations—AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York; NYSM, New York State Museum, Albany, New York; NOSAMS, National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility; SUNY, State University of New York.