Collaborative Research: Deglacial and Holocene Environmental Change in California's Headwaters: Insights from High-Resolution Sedimentary Records from Mono Lake

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As droughts, floods, and wildfires increase in frequency, intensity, and devastation, new emphasis must be placed on understanding the climate system of the American West. This project will study sediments from the Mono Basin, the most important water source for California. Located in the eastern Sierra Nevada, Mono Lake is highly sensitive to changes in the amount of precipitation falling in the region. The project will develop well-dated lake data to compare with climate models for the last ~16,000 years to study the mechanisms that control environmental change. In addition, the project will produce methodological improvements in sediment-dating techniques, produce virtual tours for the Flyover Country mobile phone app and develop educational materials for national park and community groups. The project also will use project datasets in hands-on STEM training for undergraduate and graduate students and high school teachers. Well-dated lake sediment cores provide one of the few terrestrial archives available to extend the record of climate change in the American West into the early Holocene and terminal Pleistocene. Interpretation of geochemical, sedimentological, and paleobiological proxy records from Mono Lake cores will provide continuous records of lake level and productivity that are tied to absolute lake levels available from paleo-shorelines. A sub-centennial-precision age model for the records will allow accurate and precise correlation of terrestrial climate conditions in the West to global records for the first time. This will shed light on the mechanisms controlling Western climate between the waning of the great continental ice sheets and the droughts and pluvials of the last 2000 years, which have been examined in detail in tree-ring records.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.