Continental Paleoclimate Records: Proxy Development, Quantitative
Reconstructions, and Modeling

AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA
December 5-9, 2005

Organizer: Yongsong Huang (Yongsong_Huang@brown.edu)

Synopsis: A better understanding of the controls and mechanism of continental climate change at all time scales is needed to assure human existence and prosperity in the 21st Century and beyond. Continental climate is characterized by multiple spatial complexities due to the interplay of various controlling factors such as atmospheric circulation, elevation and topography, geomorphology, surface albedo, vegetation cover, and distance from the oceans giving rise to strong geographical variability in parameters such as temperature, precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. Individual paleoclimate proxies are often affected by multiple controlling factors and filter mechanisms (e.g., soil type, local hydrology), complicating data interpretation. It is therefore imperative to develop, calibrate and rigorously assess new quantitative paleoclimate proxies and apply multiproxy approach to obtain accurate continental paleoclimate records. This session will bring together scientists working on developing and calibrating paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental proxies with those working on paleoclimate reconstructions in a variety of continental archives including but not limited to lacustrine sediments, speleothems, peat bogs, tree rings, and ice cores. This session will highlight recent progress in proxy development such as compound-specific isotope analyses, scanning XRF, isotope ratios in tropical tree rings for quantitative reconstruction of various climate parameters in continental settings, and in regional scale paleoclimate modeling. At the same time, this session will be a venue for the discussion of latest results for climate reconstructions from critical continental regions. By bringing together scientists working on method development with those on application and modeling, we hope to promote collaborations and exchange of new ideas for solving complex paleoclimate problems. For example a much better understanding of water in the atmosphere and climate change comes from studying isotope ratios in water vapor and relating variations to meteorological observations throughout the atmosphere. Statistical relationships between isotope ratios and mean temperatures or rainfall amounts are valuable but fall short of understanding past storm activity.

Deadline for abstract submission is September 8. More meeting information is available at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm05/

Paleoclimates and Human Evolution Workshop

Smithsonian Institution’s Conference & Research Center, Front Royal, VA
November 17-20, 2005

Synopsis: A workshop on integrating continental drilling research with paleoanthropology and other geological records. Visit http://www.geo.arizona.edu/web/HumanEvolutionWorkshop/ for more information.

It's About Time: Teaching the Temporal Aspects of Geoscience

October 20-21, 2005 (GSA Meeting is October 16-19), Salt Lake City, Utah

Meeting to be held in conjunction with the 2005 Geological Society of America Annual Convention

Conveners: R. Heather Macdonald, David W. Mogk, Barbara J. Tewksbury, Cathryn A. Manduca.

Sponsored by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers; GSA Geoscience Education Division; and CHRONOS

Please consider submitting an abstract for the On the Cutting Edge illustrated community discussion poster session on It's About Time: Teaching the Temporal Aspects of Geoscience (Topical session #104) at the 2005 GSA Annual Meeting.

The deadline is July 12. http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/top/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=16007

The one-abstract rule has been waived for this poster session (details at the end) and we have room for a large number of posters.

This session calls for discipline-wide reflection to share and discuss the variety of ways to enhance student understanding of all aspects of geologic time and its measurement (K-16, informal education, graduate education)

We encourage posters presenting a specific technique, approach, assignment, or lab as well as those addressing more general concepts associated with deep time and understanding rates. Possibilities include (but are not limited to)

approaches for bringing cutting edge geochronologic research into the classroom

specific assignments, labs, problem sets, or other activities that address how geoscientists determine dates and rates using paleontology, radiometric dating, relative proxy data, and/or other dating techniques

strategies and challenges for teaching about recurrence intervals, predictions, probabilistic/stochastic events, and related themes

teaching with a temporal theme

research on learning about time

The contributions to this session will be preserved in an on-line searchable collection designed to foster continued sharing and interaction. The session is scheduled for Sunday evening overlapping with the opening reception, and adjacent to the exhibition hall. We will ask each contributor to use a common poster format and complete a submission form on our website (details TBA) as well as submitting an abstract to GSA.

Funding for this workshop and initial website was provided by a grant (EAR-0323841) from the National Science Foundation through the Geology and Paleontology Program (Earth Sciences Division), Paleoclimate Program (Atmospheric Sciences Division), and the Division of Polar Programs

The late Paleozoic Gondwanan Ice Age:
Towards a more Refined Understanding of Timing, Duration, and Character

October 20-21, 2005 (GSA Meeting is October 16-19), Salt Lake City, Utah

Meeting to be held in conjunction with the 2005 Geological Society of America Annual Convention

Conveners: Christopher R. Fielding and Tracy D. Frank (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), John L. Isbell (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

Co-sponsored by NSF-EAR, NSF-ANT, and the CHRONOS and GEOSYSTEMS initiatives of NSF

For more information see the Flyer.

(GSA) Geological Society of America National Meeting

October 16-19, Salt Lake City, Utah

A GSA Topical Session Relating to Geosystems:

Title: Causes and Effects of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and Other Paleogene Hyperthermal Events

Sponsor: GSA Limnogeology Division

Session Description:

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum is the best-documented geological example of sudden global warming and its effects on biotas. Authors in this session will report new results on the PETM and other, recently-discovered Paleogene hyperthermal events.

Advocate(s): Scott L. Wing, wings@si.edu

Earth System Processes 2

8-11 August 2005, Calgary, Alberta Canada

Sponsored by Geological Society of American and Geological Association of Canada

SPECIAL SESSION ANNOUNCEMENT
GeoSystems and CHRONOS: Probing Earth's Deep-Time Climate and Linked Systems

Conveners: Gerilyn S. (Lynn) Soreghan, Ethan L. Grossman, and John McArthur

Session Digest:

Earth's 4-plus billion-year record preserves innumerable experiments in environmental change, most of which are far more extreme than those archived in the recent. Understanding the ranges, rates, and processes responsible for extremes in global systems is critical for developing a holistic knowledge of our planet's climate system. Research on deep-time climate and linked systems behavior is reaching new levels of parametric and chronologic resolution. Novel geochemical, sedimentological, and paleobiological proxies provide refined information on the intimate relation between climate change and the state of Earth's ocean, atmosphere, and lithosphere. This session focuses on these past "alternative Earths" (co-sponsored by GeoSystems and CHRONOS Sedimentary Geochemistry).

The due date for electronic abstract submission is 26 April 2005. The electronic submission form will be available on GSA's Web site 1 January 2005 through 26 April 2005. The text of electronic abstracts will be archived and remain completely searchable on GSA's Web site for many years to come. A $20 submission will be charged for each abstract submission.

(AAPG-SEPM) American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Meeting

June 19-22, 2005, Calgary, Alberta CANADA

Topical session (P-34, O-34)
Greenhouse versus Icehouse: Genetic and Stratigraphic Differences.

This session is organized by Marty Perlmutter (Chevron-Texaco) and Fred Read (Virginia Tech University)

Session Description:

This session will focus on the climatic conditions, the depositional processes and the variations that are produced in the stratigraphic record by these end-member conditions.

For more information on the meeting, or to submit an abstract, consult http://aapg.confex.com/aapg/cal2005/topics.epl

Workshop on the Late Paleozoic of Western Pangea

May 26-27, 2005, Grand Junction, Colorado

(Directly after the GSA sectional meeting)

Workshop organizers: Chuck Kluth and Lynn Soreghan

Synopsis:

The topics included in this workshop include the stratigraphic record and development of Late Paleozoic basins and uplifts; paleoclimate of western Pangea; stratigraphic correlations, biostratigraphy, and the Late Paleozoic time scale; the nature of the crustal intraplate tectonics and structural inheritance. Topics for the workshop also include the classic Ancestral Rocky Mountains and also in related features such as the transcontinental arch and mid-continent uplifts and basins. The topics will also include the development of an open data base for data on these topics.

(AAAS) American Association for the Advancement of Science

February 17-21, 2005, Washington, D.C.

Symposium

GeoSystems: Alternative-Earth Climates and Linked Systems Through Time.

This session is being organized by H. Richard Lane (National Science Foundation) and Lynn Soreghan (University of Oklahoma).

Synopsis:

The 4 billion years of history preserved on Earth record the results of multiple large-scale experiments in environmental change. Most examples of these past states of climate and linked systems are far more extreme than those archived in instrumental, historical, or even Quaternary records, but are potentially repeatable on human time scales. Indeed, aspects of our modern climate are now returning to a state last known from “deep” (pre-Quaternary) time. Understanding the ranges, rates, and processes responsible for these “alternative Earth” extremes in global systems behavior is critical for developing a holistic knowledge of our planet’s climate system and constraining predictions of future scenarios. Recent research on Earth’s climate and linked systems behavior in deep time is shattering previous preconceptions and interpretations by reconstructing, with increasing rigor and resolution, key parameters such as atmospheric CO2, sea-surface temperatures, rates and modes of ocean circulation, ocean state (anoxia, nutrient status, biological productivity), winds, seasonality, and even diurnal terrestrial temperatures from records dating from tens, hundreds, and thousands of millions of years in the past. Beyond this, these same records are simultaneously teaching us how the climate system interacted with Earth’s biosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere in ways previously unimagined. This session will highlight well-documented examples of past “alternative Earths” and the lessons we can learn from focusing light on Earth’s Deep-Time dark ages.

Symposium Agenda as of August 2004

Moderators:

H. Rich Lane (NSF) and G.S. (Lynn) Soreghan (University of Oklahoma)

Speakers:

Walt Snyder (National Science Foundation)
“Public Policy And Deep-Time Climate Research”

Robert Berner (Yale U.)
“The rise of trees and their effect on Paleozoic CO2, O2 and climate”

Mark Chandler (Columbia U)
“Models of alternative Earth extremes: The Pliocene versus the Neoproterozoic”

Gerald Dickens (Rice U)
“Environmental responses to massive hydrocarbon input at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary”

Lee Kump (Penn State U)
“Oceanic anoxia during warm intervals of Earth history”

Lynn Soreghan (U Oklahoma)
“Equatorial ice in late Paleozoic Pangaea”

Lynn Soreghan (U Oklahoma)
“Geosystems”

Discussant:

Isabel Montanez (UC Davis)

For more information on the AAAS meeting, consult www.aaasmeeting.org