New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting — Abstracts

Semi-arid, moisture-limited regions such as southwestern North America are particularly susceptible to drought effects due to variations in climate. A shift from a warm and dry Middle Holocene to cooler and wetter Late Holocene that correlates with a shift in intensity of solar insolation has been documented globally (Renssen, 2012), but the timing, character, and resolution of climate shifts such as in effective moisture in southwestern North America over the last 7000 years have not been well established. Thus it is necessary to construct a high-resolution continuous record that encapsulates these climate transitions to better understand the mechanisms that drive them. Such a record is necessary to be able to model and predict the effects of future climate variability in this region. In order to determine possible underlying causes for this these transitions a high-resolution speleothem climate record will be used in conjunction with previously published data. Speleothems are excellent repositories of climate. This study uses multiple stalagmites from multiple caves in the Guadalupe Mountains. Stable isotope time-series from these stalagmites will be combined to construct a 7000-year continuous high-resolution record from which climate variability and important climatic transitions will be identified and analyzed.

References:

1. Polyak, V., J., and Asmerom, Y., 2001, Late Holocene climate and cultural changes in the Southwestern United States: Science, v. 294, p. 148.
2. Renssen, H., Seppa, H., Crosta, X., Goosse, H. and Roche, D.M., 2012, Global characterization of the Holocene Thermal Maximum: Quaternary Science Reviews, v. 48, p. 7-19.