In the southern Appalachian mountains when groundwater dissolves underlying limestone the ground slumps to a granite bottom, creating an interesting environment known as a sagpond. These differ from sagponds located in California which are formed from strike-slip faults. Georgia sagponds form from the same geological principle that creates limesink lakes in Florida. Dr. Charles Wharton counted as many as 96 sagponds per square mile in Bartow County. They range in size from a few feet across to several acres. Some go seasonally dry; others retain water year round. Scientists recognize 4 types of sagponds. Dry sagponds drain within an hour after rain stops. Young sagponds, where the ground hasn’t finished slumping, hold water during winter and spring. Mature sagponds are partially filled with colluvial silt and retain water year round. Extinct sagponds have been completely filled with silt but still might be moist enough to support a marsh.
Topographical map of Green Pond. Sagponds often form on mountains and provide wetland habitats in otherwise dry upland environments.
These low wet areas dotting the otherwise dry upland ridge and valley region host disjunct populations of at least 49 species of plants that are normally found on the coastal plain, including the evergreen laurel oak, gallberry (a type of holly), fetterbush, rock rose, joint grass, panic grass, beaked rush, and many others. Common aquatic plants found in sagponds are tupelo, buttonbush, red maple, and sedges. Buttonbush and tupelo tend to grow in the middle of a sagpond; grass and sedge grow on the edges; than there is a heath zone ringed by a lowland woods consisting of loblolly pine, laurel oak, and red maple.
Page from the book Natural Environments of Georgia with a photo of a dry sagpond in Bartow County.
Photo by Alan Cressler of a sagpond on Keel Mountain in Madison County, Alabama. I couldn’t find any photos on the web of sagponds in Georgia, though there are supposed to be a lot of them.
Dr. Wharton reports that Bloody Pond in Chickamauga Battlefield Park has a large stand of willow oaks. (While researching this topic, I discovered that there are at least 2 other Civil War era battlefields with areas known as “Bloody Pond.”)
Scientists looking for ancient pollen and Pleistocene-aged plant macrofossils have excavated and cored several sagponds–Bob Black Pond, Quicksand Pond, Green Pond, Pigeon Mountain Marsh, and Lookout Mountain Marsh. The pollen record from all these sites combined cover a timespan of between ~34,000 Bp-~10,000 BP in calender years. Some of the studies date to before scientists realized carbon-dating gave dates too young when compared to tree rings. The data I give in this discussion mention dates I’ve adjusted. They’re just rough estimates based on the inaccurate dates from the early studies.
Pollen from Green Pond, believed to date to the Farmdalian Interstadial, suggests an environment in northwest Georgia consisting of dry oak and hickory woodlands with prairie openings. Dr. W. A. Watts (of Penn State but now retired) conducted this study in 1973 and gave carbon dates of 29,630 BP- 25,000 BP which should be adjusted to about 34 ka BP-30 ka BP. Pine pollen was scarce. ~28,000 years ago pine and spruce pollen began to increase, indicating an abrupt change to a cooler drier climate. Surprisingly, pond cypress was locally present. This shows that individual plant species ranges didn’t always change in predictable patterns. Pond cypress is absent in this region today, despite a warmer climate. Shortly after this date, the pond filled with sediment and the pollen record ends for this site. Conveniently, this is when the pollen record from sediment cored from Bob Black Pond, which Dr. Watts also studied in the early 1970’s, begins.
Dr. Stephen Jackson of Wyoming University also studied Bob Black Pond over 20 years later. He found boreal forest species dating to about 22,000 BP. In addition to pollen he found plant macrofossils of white pine, red pine, jack pine, white spruce, Critchfield’s spruce, and paper birch. Critchfield’s spruce is an extinct species thought to be adapted to temperate climates, and white pine still grows on the mountains of north Georgia, but the other 4 species no longer range much further south than Canada.
Jack pine present day range map. This species lived as far south as northwest Georgia during the LGM. Today, it lives no further south than northern Michigan. Red pine is restricted to New England. White spruce lives across Canada as does paper birch.
There’s no doubt the climate in north Georgia during the Last Glacial Maximum was cooler than that of today, but it wasn’t necessarily as cool as present day southern Canada, despite the presence of Canadian species of trees. Scientists may have originally misinterpeted this data when they assumed the climate here was comparable to today’s southern Canada. Pine and grass grow better in atmospheres with lower CO2 than broad-leafed trees. So moderately lower temperatures combined with lower CO2 levels allowed northern species of conifers to compete better with oaks, maples, and other broad-leafed trees for space in the southern Appalachians. It’s a good thing for the boreal species too because their present day range was completely under miles of ice then.
Fossil pollen from Pigeon Marsh in Walker County dates to approximately the LGM. Jack and red pine pollen ranges from 25%-45%, oak pollen ranges from 30%-40%, and spruce pollen ranges from 1%-2%. Hickory and chestnut were present but not abundant. After the LGM, as the climate remained cool but became more moist, beech became the dominant tree here until the modern floral composition took over.
During the Pleistocene sagponds would’ve been prime foraging grounds for herds of hungry mastodons. Sagponds supported the kinds of aquatic plants (especially buttonbush and pond cypress) that we know mastodons ate from analysis of their coprolites. And indeed, fossil evidence of mastodons has been found in the ridge and valley region of Georgia and Tennessee.
References:
Watts, W. A.
“The Vegetation Record of a Mid-Wisconsinian Interstadial in Northwest Georgia”
Quaternary Research 3 (2) 1973
Wharton, Charles
The Natural Environments of Georgia
Georgia Department of Natural Resources 1980
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