Arctic and North Atlantic paleo-environmental reconstructions from lake sediments

• Main Author: de Wet, Gregory A
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst 2017
• Subjects: Paleoclimate; Arctic; Organic Geochemistry; Lakes; Geology; Sediments; Biogeochemistry; Climate; Geochemistry; Glaciology; Sedimentology; Stratigraphy; Climate change; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1034; https://doi.org/10.7275/10552243.0; https://scholarworks.umass.edu/context/dissertations_2/article/2113/viewcontent/de_Wet_PhD_Dissertation_w_corrections__2nd_Rnd_.pdf

ABSTRACT ARCTIC AND NORTH ATLANTIC PALEO-ENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTIONS FROM LAKE SEDIMENTS MAY 2017 GREGORY A. DE WET, B.Sc., BATES COLLEGE M.Sc., UNIVERSITY OF MASSSCHUSETTS, AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST Directed by: Drs. Raymond S. Bradley and Isla S. Castañeda There are few fields in the discipline of Earth Science that hold more relevancy in 2017 than studies of earth’s climate. Called the “perfect problem†considering its complexity and magnitude, climate change will continue to be one of the greatest challenges humanity will face in the 21st century. And while numerical models provide valuable information on conditions in the future, the results from these simulations must be contextualized by the past. Climate reconstructions from paleo-environmental archives, even from periods colder or different from what we are experiencing today, provide that context. Every piece of information gleaned from these studies informs our collective knowledge of the climate system. In some cases, environmental reconstructions may include proxies for anthropogenic as well as climatological information, directly addressing one of the most important questions in climate science: how does changing climate affect humans? The following chapters of this dissertation are exercises in trying to understand climate change in one of the most climatically sensitive regions on earth – the high northern latitudes. While my doctoral studies cover a wide range of timescales, it is broadly unified by the focus on the Arctic. In some cases, my research spans multiple glacial/interglacial cycles, in others the concentration is on the past few thousand years. In all cases, however, the goal is to utilize lacustrine sedimentary archives to inform our knowledge of climatic change in this important region. One of the most rewarding aspects of this Ph.D. has been the creativity I have been afforded in working towards that goal. Chapter One of this dissertation involves the analysis of organic molecules, specifically ...