SGER: Deep Coring of the Valles Caldera, New Mexico to Obtain a Long-Term Paleoclimate Record

SGER：对新墨西哥州火山口山谷进行深度取芯以获得长期古气候记录

• 批准号: 0434459
• 负责人: Peter Fawcett
• 金额: $ 2.96万
• 依托单位: University of New Mexico
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-05-15 至 2005-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0434459&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SGER; Deep; Coring; Valles; Caldera

This award, under the auspices of the Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) program, seeks support to obtain and analyze a deep (~100 to 150 meter) sediment core from a lacustrine sequence in the Valles Caldera, northern New Mexico. The research is aimed at piggybacking on efforts by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the US Geological Survey to drill into the caldera in mid-May, 2004. The SGER funds will: 1) supplement drilling depths in the caldera, 2) allow transport of the core to the LacCore facility in Minnesota, and 3) enable preliminary analyses of core materials.The research will focus on determining the paleoenvironmental record of long-lived lakes in the volcanic caldera and ultimately will allow the researcher, and his colleagues, to develop a paleoclimatic record for this part of northern New Mexico over a substantial part of the Quaternary to about 1.25 million years. Research conducted on this core will include developing a preliminary age model (via radiocarbon dating, Argon isotopic age determinations, and tephrochronolgy), sedimentologic and stratigraphic analyses (mineralogy, grain size, sedimentary facies and sedimentary structures including varves if present), and paleomagnetic/rock magnetic analyses of appropriate parts of the core. The researchers expect that the analysis of this lacustrine sediment core will lead to a much better understanding of the nature of climate variability in the American southwest. A strong potential exists that the research team will recover sediments spanning several glacial-interglacial cycles. If this is so, the resulting paleoclimatic record will be one of the longest in the American Southwest and as such will be of wide interest in the paleoclimatic and paleoecologic research community. The results should provide a useful long-term context for understanding past changes in climate and montane ecosystems in the southwest. If the timing of glacial-interglacial cycles can be determined from the Valles caldera records, it would make a very interesting comparison with the Devil's Hole paleoclimatic record from Nevada. Knowledge of climate variability from the American West is sparse due to the dearth of data archives as compared to other regions in the terrestrial environment. A volcanic caldera is not usually described as a paleoclimate archive but, if the researcher and his colleagues are correct in their assumptions and successful in their drilling efforts, they will add substantially to the data available to the broader community. Given the management of Valles Caldera by the US Park Service, any data recovered from the project will be developed into a public display on the natural history of the region.

该奖项在探索性研究（SGER）计划小额赠款的赞助下，寻求支持，以获取和分析新墨西哥州北方瓦勒斯火山口湖相序列中的深层（~100至150米）沉积物岩心。这项研究的目的是利用洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室和美国地质调查局在2004年5月中旬钻探破火山口的努力。SGER基金将：1）补充破火山口的钻探深度，2）允许将岩心运输到明尼苏达州的LacCore设施，3）能够对岩心材料进行初步分析。研究将侧重于确定火山破火山口长期湖泊的古环境记录，最终将允许研究人员和他的同事，为北方新墨西哥州的这一部分建立一个第四纪到大约125万年的古气候记录。对该岩心进行的研究将包括建立初步年龄模型（通过放射性碳测年、氩同位素年龄测定和火山灰年代学）、沉积学和地层学分析（矿物学、粒度、沉积相和沉积结构，包括纹层（如果存在））以及对岩心适当部分进行古地磁/岩石磁性分析。研究人员预计，对这一湖泊沉积物岩心的分析将有助于更好地了解美国西南部气候变化的性质。研究小组有很大的潜力恢复跨越几个冰川-间冰期循环的沉积物。如果是这样的话，由此产生的古气候记录将是美国西南部最长的记录之一，因此将在古气候和古生态研究界引起广泛的兴趣。这些结果应该为了解西南部气候和山地生态系统过去的变化提供一个有用的长期背景。如果可以从瓦勒斯火山口的记录中确定冰期-间冰期循环的时间，那么它将与内华达州的魔鬼洞古气候记录进行非常有趣的比较。与陆地环境中的其他区域相比，由于缺乏数据档案，美国西部的气候变率知识很少。火山破火山口通常不被描述为古气候档案，但是，如果研究人员和他的同事们的假设是正确的，并且他们的钻探工作取得了成功，他们将大大增加更广泛的社区可用的数据。鉴于美国公园管理局对Valles Caldera的管理，从该项目中恢复的任何数据都将被开发成该地区自然历史的公开展示。