Late Holocene Geo-biologic Records of Climate Changes at Lake Tanganyika, East Africa, with Seasonal to Decadal Resolution

这项本科院校研究（RUI）奖将有助于从东非坦噶尼喀湖北部盆地的一系列沉积物岩心中发展生物和地球化学记录，这些岩心代表了过去3000年的历史。研究目标是产生高分辨率的精确年代古气候记录，以检验最近提出的小冰河期太阳变化对热带辐合带赤道方向对称压缩模型的有效性，并研究太阳强迫对热带降雨的其他可能影响。这名研究人员假设，从坦噶尼喀湖开发出详细的地质生物学时间序列，将有助于确定坦噶尼喀湖离散的古气候事件，这些事件可以与热带纬度地区的记录进行比较，从而提供从3000年到现代的干旱和降雨趋势记录。部分研究工作将涉及以硅藻为基础的过去风活动的代用物。这些数据代表了对亚非古季风系统中全新世晚期变异性的性质和起源的潜在新来源，到目前为止，几乎都是通过位于阿拉伯海及其周围的地点进行研究的。该研究项目的结果将与从热带到极地纬度的其他记录进行比较，从而将坦噶尼喀盆地的气候历史置于全球背景下。确定近期生产力下降的历史，通常归因于全球变暖，将为其起源提供重要的见解。该奖项将支持几名本科生帮助分析沉积物记录，与非美国科学家的国际合作将增加全球对研究数据的访问，并分享有关其解释的想法。

This Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) award will help develop biological and geochemical records from a series of sediment cores representing the last 3,000 years of history from the northern basin of Lake Tanganyika, East Africa. The research goal is to produce high-resolution precisely dated paleoclimate records to test the validity of a recently proposed model of symmetric, equator ward compression of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone by solar variability during the Little Ice Age, and to investigate other possible effects of solar forcing on tropical rainfall. The researcher postulates that detailed geo-biologic time series, when developed from the Lake, will help define discrete paleoclimate events at Lake Tanganyika that could be compared with records from tropical latitudes to provide a record of drought and rainfall trends from 3,000 years through modern times.Part of the research effort will involve diatom-based proxies of past wind activity. These data represents a potential new source of insights into the nature and origin of late Holocene variability in the Afro-Asian paleo-monsoon system, which until now has been studied almost exclusively through sites located in and around the Arabian Sea. Results from this research project will be compared to other records ranging from tropical to polar latitudes thereby placing the climatic history of the Tanganyika basin into a global context. Determining the history of recent productivity declines, often attributed to global warming, will provide important insights into their origin.The award will support several undergraduate students to help analyze the sediment records and the international collaborations with non-US scientists will increase worldwide access to the research data and a sharing of ideas regarding its interpretation.