Collaborative Research: High Resolution Records of Holocene Climate Change, Drought Variability and Monsoon Behavior from the Uinta Mountains of Utah

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This award funds the development of records of multi-centennial drought events over the past 10,000 years from fossil biotic and geochemical indicators of hydrological conditions and environmental temperatures preserved in Uinta Mountain (UM), Utah lake sediments. These records could increase the science community's understanding of climate-forcing mechanisms causing droughts in the UM by examining links with North Atlantic sea surface temperature variations during the early to mid-Holocene due to northward displacement of the monsoon. The researchers have already collected surface sediments and environmental data from several lakes spanning 1,000 meters of elevation across the current northern limits of significant summer monsoonal precipitation. Diatom and chironomid-inference models for temperature, specific conductivity, and depth will be developed from these and other sites. Isotopic analysis of lake sediment cellulose will provide information on the source of precipitation. The research aims to develop paleoclimate data and time series from a region susceptible to drought that is becoming densely populated. This information will be of value to a broad spectrum of paleoclimate researchers and water resource planners as they struggle to understand natural climate variability and its environmental impact in Utah and other parts of the Upper Colorado River Basin.