Seminar

Late Quaternary lake fluctuation records abound in the western US Great Basin. Yet these records have suffered from two principal characteristics: they defy precise dating; and they lack robust stratigraphic and geomorphic data. These aspects have led to a fragmentary and, at times, conflicting understanding of past hydroclimatic change. This has created great confusion about the underlying climatic forcings orchestrating these changes.

This study will present on my group's progress towards developing a centurial-scale record of late-glacial and deglacial lake fluctuation from the Mono Basin, California--a hydrologically-closed basin straddling the eastern boundary of the Sierra Nevada. The focus of this presentation will be on two ingredients critical to our study: (1) the stratigraphic and geomorphic framework we used to constrain absolute lake fluctuation data; and (2) the carbonate U-Th data we used to underpin our chronology.