We are researching past climate change in California. The goal is to bring a longer term perspective and to water management. We bring new tools to bear on questions of the severity and processes driving wet and dry cycles in California. Lessons from the past inform discussions of the California’s drought and prognosis for future water scarcity – see press page.
We are reconstructing past climate variability at five sites (all NSF funded projects):
DSDP 467, offshore California
DSDP 467 is a marine core site due west of Los Angeles we are developing a Miocene record (active NSF funding for MCO western US).
- active project of PhD student Yunlang Zhang
Great Salt Lake and Bear Lake, Utah
Great Salt Lake and Bear Lake, Utah have each deep-drilled cores that allows us to span >200 ka of climate history, at mid-latitude sites, to extend the multi-biomarker reconstruction of the same length already completed for Southern Californian Searles Lake.
- active project of PhD student Rachel So
Searles Lake, California
Searles Lake, in the Mojave desert, with sediment cores extending to the past warm period 120, 000 years ago. (NSF funding completed, many published, a couple more publications in the pipeline)
- In collaboration with David McGee MIT, Tim Lowenstein Binghamton, Tripti Bhattacharya, Syracuse.
- PhD thesis focus of Dr. Mark Peaple, PhD 2022.
Lake Elsinore, California
Lake Elsinore, in Riverside County, with sediment cores capturing the last glacial and 30, 000 years. (NSF funding and publications complete)
Zaca Lake, California
Zaca Lake, close to the Santa Barbara Basin, with sediment cores capturing high resolution records of the last 3, 000 years. (NSF funding and publications complete)
Publications:
Peaple, M.D.*, Bhattacharya, T., Lowenstein, T.K., Tierney, J.E., Knott, J.R., Feakins, S.J., Biomarker evidence for an MIS M2 glacial-pluvial in the Mojave Desert before warming and drying in the late Pliocene, in review Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, ESSOAR preprint data at NOAA
So, R.T.*, Lowenstein, T.K., Jagniecki, E., Tierney, J.E., Feakins, S.J. Holocene water balance variations in Great Salt Lake, Utah: application of GDGT indices and the ACE salinity proxy, Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 38, e2022PA004558. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022PA004558. article ESSOAR preprint data at NOAA
Stroup, J.S., Olson, K.J., Lowenstein, T.K., Jost, A., Mosher, H.M., Peaple, M.D.*, Feakins, S.J., Chen, C.Y., Lund, S.P., McGee, D. A >200 ka U-Th based chronology from lacustrine evaporites, Searles Lake, CA, G3, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GC010685. ESSOAR preprint data at NOAA
Olson, K.J.*, Guillerm, E., Peaple, M.D.*, Lowenstein, T.K., Gardien, V., Caupin, F., Feakins, S.J. Tierney, J.E., Stroup, J., Lund, S., McGee, D. Brillouin thermometry applied to last glacial and Holocene evaporites in Searles Lake, EPSL, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117913. 50dayfreelink article data at NOAA
Peaple, M.D.*, Bhattacharya, T., Lowenstein, T.K., McGee, D., Olson, K.J., Stroup, J., Tierney, J.E., Feakins, S.J. Biomarker and pollen evidence for late Pleistocene pluvials in the Mojave Desert, Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 37, e2022PA004471, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022PA004471. article data
Peaple, M.D.*, Tierney, J.E., McGee, D., Lowenstein, T.K., Bhattacharya, T., Feakins, S.J. Identifying plant wax inputs in lake sediments using machine learning, Organic Geochemistry, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orggeochem.2021.104222. article data
Feakins, S.J., Wu, M.S.*, Ponton, C.*, Tierney, J.E. Biomarkers reveal abrupt switches in hydroclimate during the last glacial in southern California, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 515, 164-172. article, data at NOAA
Kirby, M.E., Feakins, S.J., Hiner, C.A.*, Zimmerman, S.R.H., Fantozzi, J.* 2014. Tropical Pacific forcing of late-Holocene hydrologic variability in the coastal southwest United States, Quaternary Science Reviews, 102, 27-38. article
Ibarra, Y.*, Corsetti, F.A., Feakins, S.J., Rhodes, E.J., Kirby, M.E. 2015. Fluvial tufa evidence of Late Pleistocene wet intervals from Santa Barbara, California, U.S.A. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 422, 36-45. article
Dingemans, T.*, Mensing, S.A., Feakins, S.J., Kirby, M.K., Zimmerman, S.R.H., 2014. 3000 years of paleoenvironmental change at Zaca Lake, California, USA, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 2:34. article
Ibarra, Y.*; Corsetti, F.A., Cheetham, M.I.*, Feakins, S.J. 2014. Were fossil spring-associated carbonates near Zaca Lake, Santa Barbara, California deposited under an ambient or thermal regime? Sedimentary Geology, 301, 15-25. article
Feakins, S.J., Kirby, M.E., Cheetham, M.I.*, Ibarra, Y.*, Zimmerman, S.R.H., 2014. Leaf wax D/H reconstructions of late Holocene hydroclimate from Zaca Lake, California, Organic Geochemistry, 66, 48-59. article
Kirby, M.E., Feakins, S.J., Bonuso, N., Fantozzi, J.M., Hiner, C.A., 2013. Latest Pleistocene to Holocene hydroclimates from Lake Elsinore, California, Quaternary Science Reviews, 76, 1-15. article