–Use of ground penetrating radar and seismic reflection data to reconstruct basin scale patterns and histories of sedimentation

  –Use of lake sediment properties to develop facies models and to understand sedimentation processes (e.g., storm deposition)

  –Use of lake sediments to reconstruct general patterns and characteristics of late-Quaternary terrestrial climate variability

  –Use of lake sediment archives to reconstruct terrestrial climate for direct comparison to marine climate records. It remains unclear how – exactly – marine climate and terrestrial climate relate. For example, how do changes in sea surface temperatures adjacent to western North America influence terrestrial climate?

  –The late-Quaternary is ripe with threshold (i.e., non-linear) climate changes. What is the hydrologic system’s response to these threshold climate changes. The concept of threshold climate change is particularly relevant to Southern California where the hydrologic system is highly dynamic and small changes in water availability can impact millions of people.

  –Both storms and droughts wreak havoc Southern California’s socioeconomic stability. Lake sediments offer a unique archive for reconstructing the history of storms and droughts that other proxies (e.g., speleothems, tree-rings, ocean sediments) can not reconstruct directly without substantial inference.

  

– Each of the questions above is presently being investigated in one or more of the lake sites across Southern California (see Publications for details).