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

该奖项在早期概念探索研究补助金(AGERGE)计划的赞助下，用于一个项目，该项目旨在为来自吉尔吉斯斯坦、中亚的石笋建立基于铀-钍的年龄模型，生成初步代理数据，并针对洞穴滴水化学校准环境代理。总的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对各种时间尺度上快速气候变化的响应的理解。该项目还有一个教育目标，即为已经在研究实验室工作的两名拉美裔美国本科生提供培训。具体地说，项目资金将支持洞穴滴水化学、微量元素、荧光发射和强度、三角洲18氧和三角洲13碳、石笋碳酸盐矿物学等分析，以及开发基于U-Th的年龄模型和收集洞穴滴水。项目活动很好地符合渴望计划的潜在变革性、高风险和探索性，因为它们本质上是跨学科的，依赖于未经测试的想法和技术。这项研究的分析活动是新颖的，因此很可能在定期功绩审查过程中表现不佳，特别是在没有一些初步数据的情况下。如果成功，该项目可能会对古气候学领域产生重大影响，因为它在一个对不同时间尺度的水文变化敏感的地区建立了一个新的自然数据档案，提供了一个年表和时间序列。该项目可能导致与其他科学学科合作探索水气候研究的新颖和变革性的方法。

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.