This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-2). The award will support a young investigator who will apply a new approach to an important aspect of climate change, i.e., establishing quantitative estimates of past sea levels, associated with sea-level highstands of the late Pleistocene. The PI will combine a detailed stratigraphic approach with the analysis of a very large number of samples from individual stratigraphic units. This will extend The PI?s work on past interglacial sea levels using uplifted reef corals from Barbados. Refinements in U-Th dating techniques will enable improved age-dating and to distinguish features of the interglacial sea-level record not attainable earlier.
Broader impacts include the use of past interglacial sea-level records in modeling climate change for the future. Support of a graduate student and undergraduate training is also included.
