Coll Resc: Response of Eolian and Associated Depositional Systems to Climate and Dynamic External Factors-- Toward an Eolian Sequence Stratigraphic Model

模拟地球环境对气候变化的反应的不确定性 全球变暖等不断变化的条件是由贫困造成的。 了解这些环境的动态。 是 在过去的20,000年里，撒哈拉 经历了戏剧性的波动，从更广泛和沙海 比今天的发展，以被植被与共同的湖泊， 河流 而 这些摆动对应于米兰科维奇周期， 我们在过程反应模型中理解这些的基础是 最近才开始出现。 撒哈拉沙漠的面积 从阿特拉斯山脉到突尼斯的撒哈拉台地 一个不同环境的缩影，沉积物被安置在 正在下沉的槽 遥感技术首次用于绘制 环境，识别残留特征，并定位特定的 详细的现场工作。 实地工作涉及 建立不整合界面地层格架 对于该地区的风成、河流和湖泊沉积， 土壤-地貌和地层关系的实地测绘， 相分析和地球物理方法。 后续实验室分析 涉及到序列的年代测定， 气候事件 因为风成岩和相关的 沉积体系与气候等因素的关系是 层序地层学，其结果有望帮助制定 一个通用的过程响应风成序列模型， 对变化的外部控制的预测能力。

Uncertainty in modeling the response of Earth environments to changing conditions such as global warming arises from a poor understanding of the dynamics of these environments. It is established that over the past 20,000 years the Sahara has undergone dramatic swings from more extensive and sand-sea development than today to being vegetated with common lakes and rivers. While these swings correspond to Milankovitch cycles, our basis for understanding these in a process-response model has only recently begun to emerge. The area of the Sahara extending from the Atlas Mountains onto the Sahara Platform in Tunisia offers a microcosm of diverse environments, where deposits are housed in a subsiding trough. Remote sensing is first used to map present environments, recognize relict features, and locate specific depocenters for detailed field work. Field work involves the establishment of an unconformity-bounded stratigraphic framework for eolian, fluvial and lacustrine deposits in the area through field mapping of soil-geomorphic and stratigraphic relationships, facies analysis, and geophysical methods. Subsequent lab analysis involves the dating of the sequences so they can be correlated with climatic events. Because the response of eolian and associated depositional systems to climatic and other factors is the basis for sequence stratigraphy, the results are expected to help formulate a general process-response eolian sequence model that will have predictive capabilities with respect to changing external controls.