CAREER:Continental Paleoenvironmental Responses to Carbon Cycle Perturbations During the mid-Cretaceous Greenhouse

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While widely known for the diverse dinosaur faunas of the time, the Cretaceous Period is important for more than just the creatures that populate the imagination, museums, and popular culture. Cretaceous climate changes may be the result of numerous disruptions to the carbon cycle, likely due to volcanism. The carbon cycle controls climate change. Past carbon cycle changes resulted in major climate shifts, environmental change, and extinction. By understanding ancient terrestrial carbon cycle perturbations, we can understand the consequences to ongoing disruptions to the carbon cycle. This project will determine if the Cretaceous carbon cycle disruptions resulted in temperature and precipitation changes on land. To achieve these scientific goals, funds will go toward supporting community college, undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students as well as creating educational lab activities. As a Career award, the PI will develop collaborations with other universities, enhance her education activities and integrate these with a strong research program for professional development that will provide a solid base for future research.This project spans the late Aptian to early Albian (approximately 115 to 110 million year ago), and specifically targets carbon isotope excursions associated with ocean anoxic event 1b from 4 localities (Utah, Texas, Spain, and China). The project will generate multiple climate proxies such as: 1) clumped isotope paleothermometry; 2) major element geochemistry to quantify weathering intensity and paleoprecipitation; and 3) carbon isotope data to estimate pCO2. This data will be synthesized to help identify the full range of climate change triggers, feedbacks, and responses during Cretaceous carbon cycle perturbations in continental environments.