This project focused on attributing the inception of dust disturbance to Spanish colonization beginning in the mid-17th century by geochronologically reconstructing 3400 years of drought-pluvial cycles, integrating Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge (modern and archaeological), and examining land management decisions, while providing middle school students with opportunities to engage in STEAM.
Embedded Files
The NAU-SES Dust Project
NEWS
NEWS
GSA Connects 2026 materials
GSA Connects 2026 materials
Franklyn Telles, PhD
Part-time Educator at Northern Arizona University
Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals
Email: Franklyn.Telles@nau.edu
Anthropocene: Spanish Colonization Triggered 17th-Century Landscape Dust Regime Shift in the Southwestern United States
If you are unable to access this paper, please email me so that I can send it to you.
AGU Voices for Science 2026-2027
Note: This image does not constitute support for any political candidate or office.
The PReSto* curriculum is now available on the PaleoPReSto website and on Google Drive (Student Guide and Teacher Guide).
(aligned to local TEK, AZ and NM standards, and NGSS)
For educational use only. These lessons may not be used for profit and/or without attribution. You are welcome to align these lessons to local traditional ecological knowledge frameworks and local state standards.
The NAU Dust active field campaigns are now part of STARDust*
*Sonde Technology for Aerosol Retrieval and Dust
3400-Year Varve Age Model
3400-Year Varve Age Model
A) Columbine Lake Varves showing the dust mass accumulation rates (DMAR) from 1400 BCE to 2000 CE (Telles et al., in prep). G) Average Palmer Drought Modified Index showing the inferred soil moisture based on relevant tree ring data (dendrochronology) (Gille et al., 2017).
Mission of the project
Mission of the project
The mission of this project is to better understand dust as a proxy for air quality, land use, and climate change, and connect authentic scientific research to students with the prospect of engaging them in iSTEAM opportunities within the frameworks of local traditional ecological knowledge, 3 dimensions of NGSS, State Standards, and relevant to students' lives.
Significance: The beginning of the Anthropocene at 1610 CE; European impacts of colonization in the Southwest and beyond (Orbis GSSP) --> land devastation and degraded air quality. This is also known as the "Columbian Exchange."
“The Orbis spike implies that colonialism, global trade and coal brought about the Anthropocene. Broadly, this highlights social concerns, particularly the unequal power relationships between different groups of people, economic growth, the impacts of globalized trade, and our current reliance on fossil fuels.”
Evidence of the Columbian Exchange is found at Columbine Lake in Colorado
Conquistador Juan de Oñate and his caravan of over 500 settlers and livestock along the Rio Grande, on the way to Okey-Owingeh Pueblo in 1598. Painting from the Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Conquistador Juan de Oñate arrives at Okey-Owingeh Pueblo
in 1598 CE. Generated using Stabled Diffusion AI - Watercolor setting (30 Jan 2024).
Although the main focus of the project is climate change (air quality, aerosols, etc.), we welcome collaboration in the search for coccidioides, fungus that causes valley fever, and the search for micrometeorites (cosmic dust) and microtektites because impact events like the alleged bolide impact at 12,900 years ago, may have caused the Younger Dryas cooling event. The use of local and traditional knowledge to document change over time may seem innovative, but community-based participatory research may reveal that changes have really been underestimated.
Resolve the varve record of alpine catchment, Columbine Lake and explain the nexus between dust, drought, pluvial, and settlement and disturbance.
Passive field campaigns: Place dust traps around Flagstaff, the Little Colorado River, Sedona, and the Verde Valley to understand modern aeolian processes. In addition, this endeavor includes dust collection surveys on snow.
Active field campaigns: Use aerial vehicles to collect aerosols to quantify atmospheric dust particles as they flow through downwind communities.
Connect this research to traditional ecological knowledge and align it to Arizona Science Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards.
This project is a privately-funded endeavor
Citizen Science Opportunity: If you are a staff member at a K-12 school in the Flagstaff, Williams, Winslow, Holbrook, Sedona, Verde Valley, Prescott, or northern Arizona regions, please reach out to us about collaborating. We have supplies, a unit plan, lesson plans, lessons about dust with local ecological knowledge and aligned to Arizona State Science Standards and Next Generation Science Standards.
If you are a homeowner/property owner, you may partner with us in this endeavor to find out about dust in the southern Colorado Plateau and Mogollon Rim.
This citizen science opportunity is extended to the region of the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. We have supplies, a unit plan, lesson plans, lessons about dust with local ecological knowledge (of the Haudenasaunee Confederacy) and aligned to New York Science Learning Standards and Next Generation Science Standards.
If you are a homeowner/property owner, you may partner with us in this endeavor to find out about air quality in the southern Colorado Plateau, Mogollon Rim, or Finger Lakes (NY).
Local Forecast
Local Forecast
Page updated
Report abuse