Development of Environmental Proxies for Coastal Environments

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of the proposed research is to develop environmental proxies from coastal marine microfossils that can be used to reconstruct high-resolution records of global change over the past millennium. Coastal settings can yield records of past climates with annual to decadal resolution. The proposed work will provide a foundation for determining long time series that are needed to analyze climatic and oceanographic conditions on a range of time scales and to evaluate the evolution of coastal ecosystems through time. Microfossil and isotopic data from cores from Pamlico Sound, North Carolina, and living forams and ostracodes, as well as temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen data from the area will be used to develop the environmental proxies.