EAGER: Investigating Seasonal and Interannual Variability of Central Asia Paleo-Hydroclimate

该奖项使用EARLY概念探索研究（EAGER）计划赠款赞助下的资金，用于一个项目，旨在建立中亚吉尔吉斯斯坦石笋的铀钍年龄模型，生成初步的代理数据，并校准洞穴滴水化学的环境代理。 总体科学目标是利用这项研究的结果来帮助提高对中纬度水文气候在各种时间尺度上对快速气候变化的反应的理解。该项目还有一个教育目标，即为两名已经在研究人员实验室担任研究助理的西班牙裔美国本科生提供培训。具体而言，项目资金将支持几项分析，如洞穴滴水化学，微量元素，荧光发射和强度，δ 18-氧和δ 13-碳，和石笋碳酸盐矿物学以及U-Th年龄模型的开发和洞穴滴水沃茨的收集。 项目活动非常适合EAGER计划的潜在变革，高风险和探索性质，因为它们本质上是跨学科的，并依赖于未经测试的想法和技术。 该研究的分析活动是新的，因此在定期的是非曲直审查过程中可能不会很好，特别是在没有一些初步数据的情况下。 如果成功的话，这个项目可能会对古气候学领域产生重大影响，提供一个新的自然数据档案的年表和时间序列，在一个地区敏感的水文变化在不同的时间尺度。 该项目可能会导致与其他科学学科合作探索水文气候研究的新颖和变革性方法。

This award uses funds, under the auspices of the EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) program, for a project aimed at establishing a Uranium-Thorium based age model for stalagmites from Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, generating preliminary proxy data, and calibrating environmental proxies against drip water chemistry from caves. The overall science goal is to use the results of this research to help improve the understanding of mid-latitude hydroclimate response to rapid climate changes on a variety of timescales. The project also has an educational goal of providing training for two Hispanic-American undergraduate students who are already working in the researcher's lab as research assistants.Specifically, project funds will support several analyses such as cave drip water chemistry, trace elements, fluorescence emission and intensity, delta 18-Oxygen and delta 13-Carbon, and stalagmite carbonate mineralogy as well as development of a U-Th based age model and the collection of cave drip waters. The project activities fit well into the potentially transformative, high-risk, and exploratory nature of the EAGER program because they are inherently interdisciplinary and rely on untested ideas and techniques. The analytical activities of the study are novel and thus would likely not fare well in the regular merit review process, especially without some preliminary data. If successful, this project could have a significant impact on the field of paleoclimatology by providing a chronology and time series from a new natural data archive in an area sensitive to hydrologic change on varying timescales. The project could lead to novel and transformative ways to explore hydroclimate studies in collaboration with other science disciplines.