Collaborative Research: Climatic History of the Western Amazon Basin and the Equatorial Andes Since 18k

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Palynology and paleolimnology will be used to reconstruct the climatic history of the Western Amazon basin since the last glacial maximum. Sediments cores will be raised from Amazonian crater Lake Kumpaka, from an ancient Amazonian riverine lake, Zancudococha, and from the lakes in the southern Ecuadorian Andes. Fossiliferous Amazonian exposures shown by radiocarbon dating to be of glacial age will be sampled and explored. Pollen and diatom and analyses will be undertaken to reconstruct histories of vegetation and lake levels in order to test the hypothesis that glacial climates of the western Amazon were cooler rather than drier than Holocene climates. This project is important because it will delineate the paleoclimate history of this vast tropical region, a region critically important to our understanding of climate change and one virtually unknown. The research will be carried out in collaboration with Professor Paul Colinvaux at Ohio State under NSF grant number ATM-8709685.