Kenneth L. Cole

CP-LUHNA Author: Packrat Middens and Packrat Midden Research in the Grand Canyon.

U. S. Geological Survey Southwest Science Center
Colorado Plateau Field Station
Northern Arizona University
P.O. Box 5614
Flagstaff, AZ 86011

E-mail: Kenneth.Cole@nau.edu

Web page: http://www.usgs.nau.edu/staff/kcole.html

Current Positions:

Adjunct Professor, Quaternary Studies Program and College of Ecosystem Management, Northern Arizona University

Research Ecologist, USGS/Southwest Science Center

 

Education

Ph.D., Geosciences, University of Arizona, 1981

M.S., Biology, California State University, Los Angeles, 1974

B.S., Biosciences, University of Southern California, 1971

 

Research Interests:

Quaternary Geology, Paleoecology, Global Change, Settlement History, Plant Ecology

 

Recent Grants and Awards:

Past, Recent, and Twenty-first Century vegetation change in the arid southwest. Proposal funded by the USGS Global Change Research Program (with K. Thomas and S. Arundel).

 

Grazing impacts and history at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.  Funded through the USGS National Resource Protection Program (with J. Belnap, C. Drost, T. Graham, and D. Willey).

 

Roots of agriculture in southern Arabia: reconstructing human economic choices and landscape management in changing mid-Holocene paleoenvironments. Proposal funded by the National Science Foundation  (with J. S. McCorriston, S. Banerjee, and E. Oches).

 

Selected Publications:

Cole, K. L. and L. K. Murray. 1999. Paleoenvironments of Capitol Reef National Park reconstructed from fossil packrat middens. Proceedings of the 4^th biennial Conference on Research on The Colorado Plateau, van Riper, (Ed). 

 

Cole, K. L.,  in press, A multiple-scale history of past and ongoing vegetation change within the Indiana Dunes, In, Handbook for discovering historic ecosystems, D. Egan and E. Howell (eds.), Island Press, CA.

 

Cole, K. L. and G. Liu. 1994. Holocene paleoecology of an estuary on Santa Rosa Island, California. Quaternary Research, 41:326-335.

 

Cole, Kenneth L., M. B. Davis, F. Stearns, G. Guntenspergen, and K. Walker. 1998. Historical Land Cover Changes in the Great Lakes Region, In, Perspectives on the Land use History of North America: A context for understanding our changing environment, T.D. Sisk (ed.). U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, USGS/BRD/BSR-1998-0003. 104 pp.

Cole, Kenneth L., N. L. Henderson, and D. S. Shafer. 1997. Late Holocene vegetation and historic grazing impacts at Capitol Reef National Park, UT, reconstructed using fossil packrat middens. Great Basin Naturalist, 57: 315-326.

 

Cole, K. L. 1995. Current rates of vegetation change in national parks. In, LaRow, E.T., Farris, G.S., Pucket C. E., and Doran, P.B. (eds.), Our living resources 1994: A report to the nation on the distribution, abundance, and health of U.S. plants,animals, and ecosystems. National Biological Service, Washington, D.C.

 

Cole, K. L. 1995. Mixed assemblages and the regression fallacy. In, Late Quaternary Environments and deep history: a tribute to Paul S. Martin, Mead, J., and Steadman, D., (eds.), The Mammoth Site, Hot Springs, South Dakota.

 

Cole, K. L. 1990. Reconstruction of past desert vegetation along the Colorado River using packrat middens.Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, and Palaeoecology 76: 349-366.

 

Cole, K. L. 1990. Late Quaternary vegetation Gradients through the Grand Canyon. In, Fossil packrat middens: The last 40,000 years of biotic change in the arid west, J. L. Betancourt, P. S. Martin, and T. R. Van Devender (eds), University of Arizona Press, Tucson AZ.

 

Cole, K. L. 1986. The lower Colorado Valley: A Pleistocene Desert. Quaternary Research 25:392-400.