Orbital Forcing of Continental Eocene Climate: The Green River Formation of Wyoming

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This award is for the development and quantitative analysis of a detailed physical cyclostratigraphy of the early to middle Eocene Green River Formation of the greater Green River Basin of Wyoming based on extensive cores and outcrops. The study will use three suites of proxies for lake depth and hence climate: sedimentary facies (depth ranks), available shale oil yield data on cores, and geophysical logs. External time constraints will be based on varve calibration and single crystal 40 Ar/39 Ar dating of tuffs within the formation. Age models will be developed from these constraints as well as quantitative frequency analysis of the data. Thus, the study will be able to produce an orbitally tuned cyclostratigraphy for much of the early and middle Eocene, with a resolution of less than 20,000 years, registered to the existing detailed lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and paleomagnetic polarity stratigraphy.