Holocene Paleoclimate in Southwestern United States of America from Annual Banding in Stalagmites

University Of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Investigators

Abstract

This award is for research that will acquire high-resolution Holocene climate records for the southwestern USA using isotopic (i.e., oxygen-18 and carbon-13) and mineralogical (i.e., microprobe studies of strontium and magnesium) analyses of stalagmites formed in caves in Carlsbad Cavern and other caves of the Guadalupe Mountains in southeastern New Mexico. Stalagmites hold the potential for possessing a windfall of high-resolution records of paleoclimate because of recent advances in dating speleothems (i.e., cave deposits that include stalagmites) using thermal ionization mass spectrometry Uranium-series method. For example, in many cases, banding in speleothems is sufficiently uniform and distinct to allow frequency analyses to examine El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) scale variability. In the southwestern region of the United States, compelling evidence exists that changes in precipitation are related to changes in El Nino intensity. The broader impacts of this proposed research center on the development of a new archive of paleoclimatic data from terrestrial sites. Success in demonstrating the fidelity of speleothems for recording climatic events will dramatically improve our understanding of climate.