Collaborative Research: Past and Modern Variability of Summer and Winter Rainfall on the Pacific Slope of the Central Andes (Chile)

该项目试图利用安第斯中部阿塔卡马沙漠中的湿地沉积物和啮齿动物化石作为估算该地区降雨量和季节性的手段，以帮助重建第四纪气候。化石数据和古气候重建将在一定程度上受到现代气候模式的考虑。这项研究的目标是利用化石数据来理解与南美夏季风和南部西风相联系的两个季节性降雨制度之间的急剧过渡。选定的研究地点位于这一过渡带的下面，沿着300公里长的阿塔卡马沙漠高地和高原南缘。总的来说，这项研究将支持国际科学合作和本科生培训。它有可能将重要的古气候替代记录与现代气候学联系起来，以便在一个几乎没有现有古气候数据的地区解释过去的气候过程。

This project seeks to use fossil wetland deposits and fossil rodent middens from the Atacama Dessert in the Central Andes as a means to estimate precipitation and seasonality for the region as a aid to reconstructing Quaternary climate. The fossil data and paleoclimatic reconstructions will be guided, in part, by consideration of the modalities of the modern climate.The goal of the research is to use the fossil data to understand the steep transition between two seasonal rainfall regimes linked to the South American Summer Monsoon and the southern westerlies. The chosen research sites underlie this transition zone and are along a 300-km stretch of Atacama Desert highlands and the southern edge of the Altiplano.Broadly speaking, the research will support international scientific collaboration and undergraduate student training. It has the potential to link important paleoclimate proxy records with modern climatology in order to interpret past climate processes in a region with little existing paleoclimate data.