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Project 4: Solar System dynamics from continental climate rhythms, 200-240 Ma.
Brief project summary: This project will demonstrate that the secular frequencies of the inner planets and Earth’s k can be recovered from the 200-220 Ma Newark Supergroup, and elucidate the relationship between the Earth System response to changing pCO2, and the magnitude and frequencies of recorded climate cycles.
*Watch the recording of Project 4 during our Virtual Open House https://bit.ly/OpenHouseVideos1
Project description: Project 4 has as its goal, exploring both the chaotic evolution of the solar system and the modulation by atmospheric CO2 of Earth System sensitivity to variations in the Earth orbit and spin axis during the dawn of the age of dinosaurs (Triassic and Jurassic periods). Our project will develop extremely long time series (+30 million years) of paleoclimate proxy data from over 10 km of existing, largely lacustrine cores of the Newark and other rift basins of eastern North America, which at that time lay astride the equator, experiencing a monsoonal climate.
We will use a robotic X-Ray Florescence (XRF) scanning system to acquire new chemical data coupled with Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) data, traditional chemistry calibration, geophysical variations from the borehole and cores, sedimentology, and paleontology. Working with the CycloAstro Team, we are looking forward to applying novel methods of analysis using both advanced statistical and computational techniques on these data. Spanning from roughly 235 to 198 million years, these time series will overlap several major events in Earth History, including the “Carnian Pluvial” event and the End-Triassic mass extinction, as well as the recovery from that event and the rise to ecological dominance of the dinosaurs.
Principal investigators:
Dr. Paul Olsen, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory
Dr. Sean Kinney, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory
Project 4 – Olsen
Project 4 – Olsen
Principal Investigator:
Dr. Paul Olsen, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.
To learn more about Dr. Olsen:
Go to "Our team" on this website.
Project 4 – Kinney
Project 4 – Kinney
Principal Investigator:
Dr. Sean Kinney, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.
To learn more about Dr. Kinney:
Go to "Our team" on this website.
https://www.earth.columbia.edu/users/profile/sean-kinney
Top core values in Dr. Olsen's team: "Scientific and social integrity and fairness. In our quest for the highest scholarship and creativity we recognize the importance of diverse points of view stemming from different lived experiences and learned histories.
While inherent power imbalances will exist within the academic hierarchy, we strive to elevate those with less power, center ethics in our work, and be fair by honoring the work of others and giving due credit to all members of our group in inclusion in grant proposals, paper authorship, promotions, anything else appropriate to the situation."
Top core values in S. Kinney's team: Humility. We reside in the unknown when doing science and any advances we might make to expanding our greater understanding of any aspect of the universe rest on the summation of the contributions of all those who came before us. Similarly, our group (and this project) relies on the sets of unique skills and life experiences each person has to offer. Working collaboratively, we foster a working environment that values the contributions of each person, empowers and uplifts our junior colleagues, and recognizes that the successes of our efforts are never the result of any one person but of our work together as a group.
Functioning as a collective, our lab is made up of all the people who contribute or who have contributed to our work: including but not limited to high school students, undergraduate students, graduate students, post-docs, professors, and all collaborators and friends inside and out of academia. We represent a spectrum of lived histories, viewpoints, and experiences.
About the institution: Columbia University in the City of New York is a major private institution of higher education in New York, New York, U.S. One of the Ivy League schools, it was founded in 1754 as King’s College, renamed Columbia College when it reopened in 1784 after the American Revolution, and became Columbia University in 1912, finally admitting women in 1983. Besides Columbia College, the university includes two other undergraduate schools (the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of General Studies) and the affiliated Barnard and Teachers colleges.
The Earth Institute (EI) of Columbia University is a research institute at Columbia University that was established at in 1995. Its stated mission is to address complex issues facing the planet and its inhabitants through trans-disciplinary research, with a focus on sustainable development. It has 17 Research Units the largest of which is Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO). The University has also established the Columbia Climate School, closely affiliated with the EI and LDEO, addressing the anthropogenic climate crisis, one of the greatest threats to humanity.
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, was established in 1949 and renamed following gifts of the estate from Florence Corliss Lamont (an alumna of Columbia University (widow of Thomas W. Lamont, wall street financer) and a major contribution from the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation, a major supporter of US oceanographic institutions, and then changed again in in recognition if its growing scope of expertise and influence in the earth and environmental sciences. Lamont scientists were the first to map the seafloor, coin the term “global warming”, provide concrete proof for the theory of plate tectonics, reveal the oceans’ role in triggering abrupt climate change, establish the key role of variations in the Earth’s orbit in global climate change though ocean sediment cores, and begin to empirically map the chaotic evolution of the solar system. Presently, nearly 200 Ph.D.-level researchers work and teach there along with 80-90 graduate students. LDEO operates a research ship, the Marcus G. Langseth that maps the geology below the seafloor and is a preeminent leader in global change research.
The Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES) at Columbia University hosts one of the top-rated earth and environmental science programs internationally. A diverse faculty from all over the world bring their expertise and knowledge to prepare our students to take on the most current challenges facing Earth and humanity, as well as forge ahead at the cutting edge of basic research in the Earth system. DEES is closely affiliated with Columbia’s Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B), LDEO, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the Earth Institute at Columbia (EI), and several departments within the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, sharing faculty, programs, and classes and offering a stunning array of intellectual opportunities for undergraduate and graduate research, spanning the globe.
For questions more information, please email: CycloAstro2021@gmail.com
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