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

这个项目将评估3亿年前在法国沉积的沉积物，当时地球上有大量的冰。该项目将邀请来自服务不足人群的几个本科生小组——特别是平原和西南各州的土著居民——在文化敏感的背景下进行科学研究。总共有13名学生将在三年的时间里前往法国，对类似于他们在美国熟悉的沉积物类型和景观的红色沉积物进行实地和实验室工作。他们将与美国和法国科学家一起在实地和实验室收集数据，同时还将学习法国部分地区的历史和文化，其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如何表现的理解。这个IRES项目每年将有三个学生小组在法国进行实地考察。学生们将测试一个假设，即保存在中部盘古山脉（法国）附近的石炭纪-二叠纪盆地地层记录了古热带地区中海拔的冰川作用和广泛的黄土沉积。每年将有一名博士生和四名本科生参加该项目，并鼓励来自服务不足群体的学生，特别是平原和西南各州的土著居民参加。这些学生将进行实地考察，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，这些分析在合并后将检验总体假设。拟议的研究将有助于为所有参与者提供沉积学/地球化学/地质年代学分析方面的经验基础和专门知识，同时编制数据集和结果，这些数据集和结果将主要由学生参与者传播。来自土著居民的学生将被吸引到一个外国的经历，这将扩大他们的视野，但同时也展示了一种基于地方的学习，在这种学习中，过去的气候故事是从对土地的研究中提取出来的。研究结果将为研究热带泛大陆东部的古气候提供重要的约束条件。要支持这一假说，就需要对盘古大陆东部长期以来被接受的气候重建进行重大调整，而假设的失败则需要重新努力了解盘古大陆中部的经向气候状态。晚古生代冰河时代是地球吗？因此，气候建模者使用与用于气候预测的模式相同的模式，将其作为共同的目标。因此，对这些模式的校准对于了解地球气候系统在深时间和近时间间隔的更广泛方面是至关重要的。总而言之，这个项目的智力价值在于测试关于地球的假设。为了完善我们对地球气候系统的认识，包括未来的状态，我们研究了深时间气候行为。更广泛的影响包括为服务不足人口的学生提供研究机会，这将有助于培养对科学的兴趣和建立新的国际合作。

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.