We study geologic evidence of past environmental dynamics to evaluate processes involved in current and future climate changes and their effects on water and ecosystems.
What is the Shuman Lab?
The Shuman Lab is Dr. Bryan Shuman's paleoclimate and paleoecology lab in the Department of Geology & Geophysics at the University of Wyoming. Students working on research projects in the lab can obtain Ph.D.s in Geology or Ecology. Undergraduates and high-school students also participate in our field- and lab-based research, which generally uses lake sedimentary records to evaluate how climate and ecosystems have changed in the past 15,000 years. During this period, various aspects of the Earth system (its orbit, atmospheric composition, and glacial cover) differed substantially from today, and many landscapes and resources changed as a result. Current projects are supported by an NSF CAREER grant, additional NSF and USGS funding, and a grant from the Wyoming Water Research Program.
What do we do?
Climate conditions vary from year to year, century to century, and millennium to millennium. We know that climates will continue to change in the future, especially due to human activitiy, but the effects of future climate change on natural systems, such as lakes, forests, and prairies, remain poorly understood and hard to predict. Studies of past conditions provide a fundamental way to learn about the processes involved. Water is a major focus of our work because it is a vital resource for people and ecosystems, and the potential for persistent changes in the climatic availability of water remain poorly documented. Likewise, the responsiveness of ecosystems to shifting moisture levels remains a large uncertainty for the future, but can be examined by case examples from the fossil record. We are using such cases to study how ecosystems respond to climate (moisture) changes, especially in the context of other factors and stresses like wildfire and human land-use. To pursue these topics, we study ancient materials preserved in lake sediments.
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Studying Environmental Change over the Past 15,000 Years
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