Fine Resolution Transglacial Paleoclimate Record from Lake Titicaca, Peru and Bolivia

Florida Institute Of Technology, Melbourne FL

Investigators

Abstract

This award will generate a pollen and charcoal record from Lake Titicaca. Selected portions of core LT01-2B (believed to be a continuous sedimentary sequence spanning the last 140,000 years) will be sampled at 60-80 year resolution. A study of modern analog pollen and charcoal deposition will be conducted on lakes between 3000 and 5000 m elevation in Peru and Bolivia. Samples will be collected from 80 lakes, notes will be taken on the surrounding vegetation, evidence of fire, wetland plants, and basic limnological data. This component of the research should strengthen other southern hemisphere paleoclimate reconstructions. Titicaca is the largest lake in South America and offers the first uninterrupted transglacial record that includes a full Holocene sequence from the Neotropics. Core LT01-2B will be the center for multiproxy collaborative research to establish paleoclimatic change in the Titicaca basin. The fossil pollen and charcoal will be the principal non-paleolimnological reconstruction and hence provide unique data on the vegetation, and fire history of the surrounding watershed, the flanking marshes, and submerged aquatic vegetation. These data will also provide an independent assessment of paleoclimatic events deduced from isotopic or diatom data. This award will provide important palynological data from a region of high biodiversity at considerable risk from future global climate change. Understanding the ecological preferences of modern pollen in the region and knowing what changes took place in the past due to climate variability are fundamental to understanding the biotic response to future southern hemisphere climate change.