This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This award funds a workshop focused on developing a research plan for work in the Soledad Basin, a high sedimentation rate anoxic basin with laminated sediments off Baja California. Topics covered will include 1) the 20th century warming of the California Current System and its effects on ecosystems, 2) teleconnections between North American drought conditions and ENSO, and 3) the intensification of oxygen minimum zones along the western margin of North America. The workshop will bring together an international (mainly US and Mexican) group of scientists who are studying modern and past climate processes and oceanographic/ecological changes in the Soledad Basin, and examine the potential for a long-term monitoring program that would allow better interpretation of the sedimentary record.