8 Undergraduate Students (Posters)

Monday, 13 March 2017
9:00 AM - 5:30 PM
Grand Ballroom CDE

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE MAYAN COLLAPSE: HIGH RESOLUTION PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION FROM SPELEOTHEM RECORDS IN BELIZE

Paper number: 8-43
Program: Theme Sessions
Time: 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM

Authors

Abstract

Climate change during the Mayan Collapse was examined using two speleothems from Belize. Variations of carbon and oxygen isotopes and strontium concentration of well-dated speleothems were used to reconstruct paleoclimate changes for the Classic and Postclassic Mayan Periods. Speleothems, CH-3 and CH-4, were gathered from the Chapat Cave, western Belize. Stable isotope data were obtained using a Gasbench-II coupled with a ThermoFinnigan DeltaPlus XP IRMS. The age of CH-3 ranges from 1420 ± 58 yr BP to -12 ± 9 yr BP. The age of CH-4 ranges from 790 ± 22 yr BP to 247 ± 20 yr BP. The amount of strontium present in CH-4 and CH-3 fluctuates throughout the sample, which may indicate drought and wet oscillations. Prolonged droughts may have had a significant impact on the Mayan civilization.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 49, No. 1

doi: 10.1130/abs/2017SC-289614

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