1 Late Pleistocene and Holocene Climate Change In
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LATE PLEISTOCENE AND HOLOCENE CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE MAYA LOWLANDS By JAIME ESCOBAR A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2010 1 © 2010 Jaime Escobar 2 To Natalia Hoyos, Antonia Escobar, and my family in Colombia 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost I would like to thank Dr. Mark Brenner. I had the opportunity to work with the best advisor. His experience and care for students go far beyond academia into the personal qualities that make him a true mentor and friend. I will definitively miss our trips to “Hear Again” to buy 3 CDs for 10 bucks. Many thanks go to Dr. David Hodell for providing critical advice on every aspect of this dissertation and for his funny comments such as “Just maybe the benthic forams are lying to us”. Special thanks also go to the other members of my committee, Dr. Ellen Martin and Dr. Thomas Whitmore, for their assistance and constructive suggestions towards my dissertation. I thank Gianna Browne and Dr. Jason Curtis for their assistance in the Light Stable Isotope Mass Spectrometry laboratory and the Land Use and Environmental Change Institute’s Paleoenvironmental Research Laboratory. I thank the people at the School of Natural Resources and Environment, specially Dr. Stephen R. Humphrey, Meisha S. Wade, and Cathy L. Ritchie. I also thank professors, staff and students from the Department of Geological Sciences. I am extremely grateful to the many agencies and individuals in Guatemala who assisted this project (Chapters 2 and 3). They include: Universidad del Valle, Universidad San Carlos, Ministerio de Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, Consejo Nacional de Areas Protegidas, Instituto de Antropología e Historia, Autoridad Para el Manejo y Desarrollo Sostenible de la Cuenca del Lago Petén-Itzá, Wildlife Conservation Society, Alex Arrivillaga, Cathy Lopez, Margaret Dix, Michael Dix, Margarita Palmieri, David, Rosita, & Kelsey Kuhn, and the staff at La Casa de Don David. I also thank our many collaborators from University of Minnesota (Minneapolis/Duluth), Geoforschungszentrum (Potsdam), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Zurich), 4 Université de Genève, as well as the personnel of DOSECC (Drilling, Observation and Sampling of the Earth’s Continental Crust). This project was funded by grants from the US National Science Foundation, the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and the Swiss National Science Foundation. Coring on Lakes Punta Laguna and Chichancanab (Chapter 4) was funded by NOAA Grant NA36GP0304. Coring at Lake Petén Itzá (Chapter 4) was supported by NSF grant EAR-9709314 and a grant from the National Geographic Society. I received support from the University of Florida School of Natural Resources and Environment, Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Student Grant Program, the DOSECC Internship for Student Research, and a Geological Society of America Graduate Student Research Grant. I thank all the friends and family members who supported me during this great endeavor. Friends David Buck, Elli Harrison-Buck, Eliza Buck, Pablo Solano, Diana “Tita” Alvira, and Simon Solano welcomed me into their homes where I spent some of the most enjoyable moments while pursuing my PhD degree. I also thank the “Parce” family, Cathy Venz-Curtis and the “girls”, Susan Milbrath, Susanna Blair, William Kenney, “Cocoya”, and Carlos Jaramillo. Thanks go to my father, Jaime Escobar, my mother, Gloria Jaramillo and my sister Maria Teresa Escobar for always being there to share their strength and love. Last but certainly not least, I would like to give infinite thanks to my wife, Natalia Hoyos and daughter, Antonia Escobar, who represents all the good things worth looking for in life. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................. 8 LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................................... 9 ABSTRACT.……………. ...... …………………………………………………………………13 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 15 The Petén Itzá Scientific Drilling Project: A Historical Perspective.......................... 15 The Lake Petén Itzá Scientific Drilling Project (PISDP)........................................... 17 Lake Petén Itzá’s Modern Limnology and Regional Climate ................................... 18 Paleoclimate Proxies in Lake Petén Itzá Sediments ............................................... 19 Lithology............................................................................................................ 19 Stable Isotopes of Oxygen ................................................................................ 20 Chronology .............................................................................................................. 23 A 45-ka Climate Record from Lake Petén Itzá ........................................................ 25 Statement of Objectives........................................................................................... 26 Dissertation Organization ........................................................................................ 27 2 CLIMATE CONDITIONS IN THE LOWLANDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA DURING THE LAST GLACIAL MAXIUM (LGM)...................................................... 42 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 42 Study Site ................................................................................................................ 44 Methods ................................................................................................................... 45 Results..................................................................................................................... 46 Discussion ............................................................................................................... 47 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 54 3 CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE NORTHERN NEOTROPICAL LOWLANDS DURING THE LAST DEGLACIATION..................................................................... 59 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 59 Study Site ................................................................................................................ 61 Field and Laboratory Methods ................................................................................. 62 Proxy Interpretation: Oxygen Isotopes .................................................................... 63 Core Chronology...................................................................................................... 64 Results..................................................................................................................... 65 Climate Reconstruction for the Last Deglaciation.................................................... 66 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 76 6 4 ISOTOPE MEASUREMENTS OF SINGLE OSTRACOD VALVES AND GASTROPOD SHELLS FOR CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION: EVALUATION OF WITHIN-SAMPLE VARIABILITY AND DETERMINATION OF OPTIMUM SAMPLE SIZE ......................................................................................................... 85 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 85 Study Sites............................................................................................................... 90 Laboratory Methods................................................................................................. 90 Results..................................................................................................................... 92 Discussion ............................................................................................................... 94 Within-Horizon Variability and Calculation of Optimum Sample Size................ 94 δ18O Variability among Individuals within a Sample as a Proxy for High- Frequency Climate Shifts............................................................................... 99 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 105 5 CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................... 120 Late Pleistocene and Holocene Climate Change in the Maya Lowlands: An Overview............................................................................................................. 120 LIST OF REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 123 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH........................................................................................... 135 7 LIST OF TABLES Table page 1-1 Location of drill sites, water depth, penetration, and core recovery at Lake Petén Itzá. Modified from Hodell et al. (2006). ...................................................