Upgrade of Carbonate Preparation System, Stable Isotope Laboratory, University of Massachusetts

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

This award will be used to purchase scientific equipment for the Stable Isotope Laboratory in the Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts. The equipment, a GasBench II, will allow rapid, automated analyses of the oxygen and carbon stable isotope ratios of a variety of geologic material. The equipment will primarily support paleoclimate research focused on better understanding changes in tropical hydrology over the past several glacial cycles. Reconstructing past climate variability is critical to placing the amplitude of recent climate change into a broader, geological context; to understanding the response of future climate to the rise in global mean temperature; and providing information used to evaluate how accurately global circulation models simulate climate under different boundary conditions and on timescales beyond the instrumental record. This project will facilitate research seeks to better understand the causes of tropical hydrologic variability in regions that experiences severe drought and flooding on inter-annual time scales, with important repercussions for local societies. The equipment will also play an important educational role, supporting undergraduate research projects at Smith College, Mt Holyoke College, Hamshire College and Amherst College though the Five College Geology Consortium. Smith College and Mt. Holyoke College are two of the premier women's colleges in the country. The instrumentation to be purchased will support continued investigations in tropical paleoclimatology in the Yucatan region of Mexico and in Madagascar. Long, high-resolution well-dated paleoclimate records from the Yucatan are crucial to compare hydrologic change to with the complex history of ancient human populations in the region (Maya and pre-Maya), to better understand changes in tropical climate regimes that correlate with but may not be caused by precipitation related to the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone, and to quantify rates of hydrological change in tropical North America on time scales from annual to orbital. Studies of changes in tropical hydrology in Madagascar will provide important new data from the Southern Hemisphere tropics and thereby help establish the timing of changes in the Indian Monsoon in the Southern vs Northern Hemispheres on orbital and millennial timescales. They will also help determine what drives interannual variability in rainfall and its relationship to the Indian Ocean Zonal Mode.