IRES: Landscapes of Deep Time in the Red Earth of France: Research Training in Paleoclimate

该项目将评估3亿年前在法国沉积的沉积物，当时地球上冰很丰富。该项目将在文化敏感的背景下，让几个来自服务不足人群--特别是平原和西南部各州的土著人民--的本科生团队参与科学研究。共有13名学生将在三年的时间里前往法国，在红色沉积物上进行野外和实验室工作，类似于他们在美国熟悉的沉积物类型和景观。他们将与美国和法国的科学家合作，收集现场和实验室的数据，同时了解法国某地区的历史和文化，那里的地质历史与他们的祖国相似。这个项目将进一步加深我们对地球表面条件在类似于现在的条件下的行为的理解。IRES项目每年将有三个学生小组在法国进行实地考察。学生们将检验这样一种假设，即保存在盘古山脉中部(法国)附近的石炭-二叠纪盆地地层记录了古热带地区中等海拔的冰川和广泛的黄土沉积。每年将有1名博士生和4名本科生参加这一项目，并鼓励来自服务不足群体的学生，特别是平原州和西南部各州的土著人民参加。这些学生将在独立的项目中进行实地考察，以记录相属性，包括详细的粒度分析、石英微结构、地球化学和地质年代学分析，这些项目合并后将检验总体假设。拟议的研究将有助于所有参与者在沉积学/地球化学/地质年代学分析方面的经验基础和专门知识，同时开发数据集和结果，这些数据集和结果将主要由学生参与者传播。来自原住民的学生将被吸引到一种外国体验中，这将拓宽他们的视野，同时展示一种基于地点的学习，在这种学习中，过去气候的故事被从对土地的研究中调侃出来。这些结果将为热带东部联合古陆的古气候提供重要的制约因素。要支持这一假说，需要对长期接受的盘古东部气候重建进行重大转变，而假说的失败将需要重新努力了解整个联合古陆中部的经向气候状态。晚古生代冰期是地球-S最近的前第四纪冰川，因此是气候建模人员的共同目标，使用的模型与气候预测所用的模型相同。因此，对这些模型的校准对于理解地球气候系统在深时间和近时间间隔内的更广泛方面至关重要。综上所述，这个项目的学术价值在于检验地球的假说？S深部气候行为，以提炼我们对地球气候系统包括未来状态的知识。更广泛的影响包括为服务不足的学生提供研究机会，这将有助于培养人们对科学的兴趣，并建立新的国际合作。

This project will evaluate sediments deposited 300-million years ago in France at a time of abundant ice on the planet. This project will engage several teams of undergraduates from underserved populations - particularly indigenous peoples of the Plains and Southwest states - in scientific research within a culturally sensitive context. A total of 13 students will travel to France over three years to conduct field and lab work on red sediments analogous to the types of sediments and landscapes familiar to them in the U.S. They will work with both U.S. and French scientists in collecting data in both the field and the laboratory, while also learning about the history and culture of a part of France with a geologic history analogous to that of their homeland. This project will further our understanding of how Earth's surface conditions can behave under conditions analogous to the present. This IRES project will involve three student groups per year undertaking fieldwork in France. Students will test the hypothesis that Carboniferous-Permian strata of basins preserved near the Central Pangaean Mountains (France) archive a record of moderate-elevation glaciation and widespread loess deposits in the paleo-tropics. One PhD student and 4 undergraduates per year will participate in this project, and students from underserved groups, particularly indigenous peoples of the Plains and Southwest states, will be encouraged to participate. These students will conduct fieldwork to document facies attributes, including detailed grain-size analyses, quartz microtextural, geochemical, and geochronological analyses in discrete projects that when merged will test the overarching hypothesis. The proposed research will contribute to the experience base and expertise in sedimentologic/geochemical/geochronological analyses for all participants, while developing datasets and results that will be disseminated largely by student participants. Students from the Native populations will be drawn into a foreign experience that will widen their horizons, yet simultaneously demonstrate a place-based learning wherein stories of past climates are teased from studies of the land. Results will provide important constraints on paleoclimate of tropical eastern Pangaea. Support of the hypothesis would require a large shift in long-accepted reconstructions of climate in eastern Pangaea, whereas a failure of the hypothesis will require renewed efforts to understand meridional climate states across central Pangaea. The Late Paleozoic Ice Age is Earth?s most recent pre-Quaternary glaciation, and thus a common target for climate modelers, using the same models as those employed for climate prediction. Hence, calibrations to these models are critical for understanding broader aspects of Earth's climate system in both deep- and near-time intervals. In summary, the intellectual merit of this project lies in testing hypotheses of Earth?s deep-time climate behavior in order to refine our knowledge of Earth's climate system, including future states. The broader impacts include providing students of underserved populations research opportunities that will help cultivate interest in science and forge new international collaborations.