Paleoclimate Reconstruction from Weybridge Cave Speleothem

Understanding future climate change may prove to be one of the most important scientific endeavors of this century. One way that geologists contribute to this field, is by examining paleoclimate. Studying past climate change... [ view full abstract ]

Understanding future climate change may prove to be one of the most important scientific endeavors of this century. One way that geologists contribute to this field, is by examining paleoclimate. Studying past climate change allows scientists to place valuable parameters on global models that simulate and predict future climate patterns. This project focuses on the climate of Weybridge and the surrounding area over the past 5 thousand years by studying the geochemistry of a speleothem taken from Weybridge Cave. This involves two primary tasks. The speleothem itself was sampled and analyzed for stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon, and a hydrology study was conducted on the cave. The speleothem oxygen isotope chemistry provides insight into past precipitation quantity, source, and sometimes temperature, while the carbon isotope chemistry provides insight into vegetation changes. While our record is still being interpreted, preliminary data may suggest that there have been substantial fluctuations in precipitation source over the past five thousand years. This study is particularly interesting because there have been very few speleothem paleoclimate reconstructions done in the the Northeastern United States.