Upgrade of Carbonate Preparation System, Stable Isotope Laboratory, University of Massachusetts

这笔赠款将用于为马萨诸塞州大学地球科学系稳定同位素实验室购买科学设备。 该设备是GasBench II，将允许对各种地质材料的氧和碳稳定同位素比率进行快速自动分析。 这些设备将主要支持古气候研究，重点是更好地了解过去几个冰川周期中热带水文的变化。重建过去的气候变率对于将近期气候变化的幅度置于更广泛的地质背景下、理解未来气候对全球平均温度上升的反应以及提供用于评估全球环流模式在不同边界条件下和仪器记录之外的时间尺度上模拟气候的准确性的信息至关重要。这一项目将促进研究，以便更好地了解在跨年度时间尺度上经历严重干旱和洪水的区域的热带水文变化的原因，对当地社会产生重要影响。 这些设备还将发挥重要的教育作用，通过五所大学地质学联合会支持史密斯学院、霍利奥克山学院、汉郡学院和阿默斯特学院的本科生研究项目。史密斯学院和山。霍利奥克学院是该国两所最好的女子学院，所购买的仪器将用于继续在墨西哥尤卡坦地区和马达加斯加进行热带古气候学研究。 尤卡坦半岛长期的、高分辨率的、日期明确的古气候记录对于比较水文变化和该地区古代人类复杂的历史至关重要（玛雅和前玛雅），以更好地了解热带气候状况的变化，这些变化与热带辐合带有关的降水相关，但可能不是由降水引起的，并量化北美热带地区从年度到轨道时间尺度上的水文变化率。对马达加斯加热带水文变化的研究将提供南半球热带地区的重要新数据，从而有助于确定轨道和千年时间尺度上南半球与北方半球印度季风变化的时间。它们还将有助于确定降雨年际变化的驱动因素及其与印度洋纬向模态的关系。

This award will be used to purchase scientific equipment for the Stable Isotope Laboratory in the Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts. The equipment, a GasBench II, will allow rapid, automated analyses of the oxygen and carbon stable isotope ratios of a variety of geologic material. The equipment will primarily support paleoclimate research focused on better understanding changes in tropical hydrology over the past several glacial cycles. Reconstructing past climate variability is critical to placing the amplitude of recent climate change into a broader, geological context; to understanding the response of future climate to the rise in global mean temperature; and providing information used to evaluate how accurately global circulation models simulate climate under different boundary conditions and on timescales beyond the instrumental record. This project will facilitate research seeks to better understand the causes of tropical hydrologic variability in regions that experiences severe drought and flooding on inter-annual time scales, with important repercussions for local societies. The equipment will also play an important educational role, supporting undergraduate research projects at Smith College, Mt Holyoke College, Hamshire College and Amherst College though the Five College Geology Consortium. Smith College and Mt. Holyoke College are two of the premier women's colleges in the country.The instrumentation to be purchased will support continued investigations in tropical paleoclimatology in the Yucatan region of Mexico and in Madagascar. Long, high-resolution well-dated paleoclimate records from the Yucatan are crucial to compare hydrologic change to with the complex history of ancient human populations in the region (Maya and pre-Maya), to better understand changes in tropical climate regimes that correlate with but may not be caused by precipitation related to the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone, and to quantify rates of hydrological change in tropical North America on time scales from annual to orbital. Studies of changes in tropical hydrology in Madagascar will provide important new data from the Southern Hemisphere tropics and thereby help establish the timing of changes in the Indian Monsoon in the Southern vs Northern Hemispheres on orbital and millennial timescales. They will also help determine what drives interannual variability in rainfall and its relationship to the Indian Ocean Zonal Mode.