Research Interests

Climate variability during the Late Holocene using foraminiferal assemblages from Orca Basin

Advisors: Richard Z. Poore (USGS), Terrence Quinn Ph.D, David Hollander Ph.D

The Holocene has evidence of oscillating warm and cold periods, with the most recent extremes known respectively as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). Little is known about the causes of these transitions. Some researchers believe the high frequency variability is cased by external solar forcing while others believe the variation is caused by internal dynamics of the global climate system.

We are producing a high resolution late Holocene (0-2kbp) foraminiferal assemblage record taken for a 55 cm sediment core deposited under oxic conditions on the western flank of the Orca Basin, Gulf of Mexico. Preliminary data of the warm water indicators Globigerinoides ruber are showing a warming trend from the middle of the LIA to the present and appears to show periodic variability. The results will be compared with the faunal and geochemical data from a similar depositional setting to the west, the Pigmy Basin, in order to demonstrate regionally coherent trends in climate variability on multi-decadal to centennial timescales.