International Conference: The Towuti Drilling Project: Paleoenvironments, Biological Evolution, and Geomicrobiology of a Tropical Western Pacific Lake

Towuti钻井项目(TDP)是一项国际研究计划，旨在了解热带西太平洋长期的环境和气候变化，地质和环境变化对特有水生生物进化的影响，以及富金属、超镁铁质湖泊沉积物的地质微生物和地球化学。托乌提湖是东南亚最大和最古老的湖泊，因此拥有该地区最长的气候变化记录之一。该湖是数十种特有鱼类、蜗牛、虾和其他生物的家园，周围是地球上最多样化的雨林。该湖也是地球上仅有的几个大型含铁湖泊之一，拥有一个外来微生物群落，可能与地球早期含铁海洋中存在的生态系统相似。2015年底，TDP(EAR-1401448)从Towuti湖海底恢复了1000多米的沉积物钻芯，以重建印度-太平洋气候和这些独特的生态系统在更新世时期的演变。该奖项为在印度尼西亚马卡萨尔举办的一个国际研讨会提供支持，以综合TDP的成果，并计划对印度尼西亚环境历史进行研究。特别要解决的领域包括：1)一个新的长而高分辨率的热带西太平洋气候变化记录，以测试全球气温、温室气体浓度和其他气候强迫因素的变化对印度-太平洋水文的影响；2)东南亚热带雨林对过去气候变化的响应，包括比现在更温暖的气候；3)关于该湖的年龄和历史以及导致Towuti湖特有动植物的湖滨条件的信息；4)对Towuti湖沉积物中深层运作的微生物过程及其对沉积物矿物学和生物地球化学的影响的新的见解。

The Towuti Drilling Project (TDP) is an international research program to understand long-term environmental and climatic change in the tropical western Pacific, the impacts of geological and environmental changes on the biological evolution of endemic aquatic taxa, and the geomicrobiology and geochemistry of metal-rich, ultramafic-hosted lake sediment. Lake Towuti is the largest and oldest lake in Southeast Asia, and thus holds one of the longest records of climate change anywhere in the region. The lake is home to dozens of species of endemic fish, snails, shrimp, and other organisms, and is surrounded by the most diverse rainforest on Earth. The lake is also one of the only large ferruginous (iron-rich) lakes on Earth, and hosts an exotic microbial community that is potentially analogous to the ecosystems that existed in early Earth's ferruginous oceans. In late 2015, the TDP (EAR-1401448) recovered over 1000 m of sediment drill core from the floor of Lake Towuti to reconstruct how Indo-Pacific climate and these unique ecosystems evolved during the Pleistocene epoch. This award provides support for an international workshop in Makassar, Indonesia, to synthesize results from the TDP and to plan research on the environmental history of Indonesia. Specific areas to be addressed include: 1) a new long, high-resolution record of tropical western Pacific climatic change during last ~1 million years to test the impacts of changes in global temperature, greenhouse gas concentrations, and other climate forcings on Indo-Pacific hydrology; 2) the response of Southeast Asian tropical rainforests to past climate change, including climates warmer than the present; 3) information on the age and history of the lake and the limnological conditions that gave rise to Lake Towuti's endemic fauna and flora; and 4) new insight into the microbial processes operating at depth in Towuti's sediments and their effects on sediment mineralogy and biogeochemistry.