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Geology

University of South Florida

Theses/Dissertations

Paleoclimate

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Ice Deposits In Lava Tubes From West-Central New Mexico As Archives Of Past Volcanic Eruptions And Climate Change, Quinton Z. Vitelli-Hawkins Jun 2022

Ice Deposits In Lava Tubes From West-Central New Mexico As Archives Of Past Volcanic Eruptions And Climate Change, Quinton Z. Vitelli-Hawkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Southwest of the United States is currently in a megadrought phase. Recent studies have shown that three of the most severe droughts of the last two millennia have occurred in the last 120 years, while geo-archaeological evidence suggests there were five megadroughts just from 150 to 950 CE. To try to better understand the causes of the droughts across the Southwest, a 110-cm long ice core was drilled from an ice deposit in a lava tube (Cave 29) from El Malpais National Monument in west-central New Mexico. The δ18O values in the ice core (ranging from −11.78 to −3.54‰) …


Plio-Pleistocene Antarctic Ice-Ocean Interactions In The Ross Sea, Catherine Prunella Nov 2020

Plio-Pleistocene Antarctic Ice-Ocean Interactions In The Ross Sea, Catherine Prunella

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Warm, intermediate-depth Southern Ocean waters are implicated in recent Antarctic ice mass loss. Direct observations of Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) retreat are temporally limited, necessitating paleoceanographic records of ocean-ice interactions during past warm climate intervals. Deepsea and ice-proximal sediments record orbitally-paced glacial-interglacial fluctuations in AIS volume during the Plio-Pleistocene (last 5 million years; Ma), but the total contribution of the AIS and the role of ocean heat in these fluctuations remain unresolved. To address the response of Antarctica’s ice sheets to changing ocean temperatures during the Plio-Pleistocene, International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 374 recovered sediments from the Ross Sea …


Mid-Holocene Speleothem Climate Proxy Records From Florida And Belize, Anna L. Pollock Apr 2015

Mid-Holocene Speleothem Climate Proxy Records From Florida And Belize, Anna L. Pollock

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As global temperatures rise due to anthropogenic climate change, water resources, thus economies, are threatened. A geologically recent period of increased temperatures is the mid-Holocene and an investigation of its climate may allow for a better understanding of future precipitation and changes to regional water resources. The regions of interest are tropical Northern Central America and subtropical North America with Belize and Florida representing each climate zone. By reconstructing mid-Holocene climate in Florida and Belize, I hope to provide a better understanding of how increased temperatures and a reduced latitudinal temperature gradient impacts both precipitation patterns and variability. Today, drivers …


Climatic And Structural Controls On The Geomorphology Of Wadi Sana, Highland Southern Yemen, Joshua Michael Anderson Apr 2007

Climatic And Structural Controls On The Geomorphology Of Wadi Sana, Highland Southern Yemen, Joshua Michael Anderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Middle Holocene climate change forced significant environmental response and influenced human activities throughout southern Arabia. Climate models and proxy data indicate that climate along the southern Arabian peninsula changed from a moist phase, spanning the early to middle Holocene, to an arid phase, which persisted for the last ca. 5,000 years. A weakening and southward shift of the Southwest Indian Monsoon System, forced by northern hemisphere insolation variations in the precession band and/or glacial boundary conditions, is suggested as the mechanism for the abrupt shift to more arid conditions. Geoarchaeological evidence suggests that agriculture was more widespread and evolved alongside …