Collaborative Research: P2C2--Paleoclimate and Cultural Change in Mesoamerica: Testing the Hypothesis of ENSO Forcing of Late Holocene Rainfall Variability

研究人员的目标是在墨西哥西南部厄尔尼诺-南方涛动（ENSO）敏感地区收集的铀系列石笋中，在过去的5000年里，开发几个高分辨率（~2到5年）、时间重叠和复制的三角洲氧-18同位素记录。该项目的目标是验证一个假设，即墨西哥南部在中世纪气候异常（MCA）期间经历了长时间的潮湿条件，这与东太平洋更La Niña-like的低海面温度状态相一致。主要的更广泛的影响包括博士研究生的教育，以及为美国和墨西哥感兴趣的公众提供英语和西班牙语洞穴科学指南的发展。此外，科学成果可以广泛应用于物理科学和社会科学的许多领域。

The researchers aim to develop several high-resolution (~2 to 5 year), time-overlapping and replicated delta oxygen-18 isotope records over the past five millennia from uranium series dated stalagmites collected in an El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) sensitive region of southwestern Mexico. The goal of the project is to test the hypothesis that southern Mexico experienced prolonged wet conditions during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA) that was coincident with a more La Niña-like state of low sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean.The primary broader impacts involve the education of a doctoral student and the development of English and Spanish guides to cave science for interested members of the public in the U.S. and in Mexico. Also, the science results could have broad application to many areas in the physical and social sciences.