Reconstructing Earth's Climate History. Kristen St. John
book in this inquiry‐based way will help you develop valuable, transportable skill sets.
Practical Use of Multipart Exercises
Each chapter in this book is a multipart exercise. The first part of each chapter is typically designed to introduce a topic and/or gauge prior knowledge, and therefore to identify possible misconceptions. In‐depth exploration of the topic follows in subsequent exercise parts, as does the synthesis of the important implications of the data. How you use these exercises will depend on the focus of your course, time, prior knowledge (both instructor and student), and class size. Therefore you may explore a chapter from beginning to end, or you may be extracting specific parts of exercises that support your curriculum and instructional goals, and course management decisions. Some exercises may be assigned as homework, and others may serve as in‐class activities that can be jumping‐off points for lectures, or an entire chapter may serve as a weekly lab activity. In all cases, the value of group discussion at different junctures within, and/or at the end of, an exercise cannot be underestimated. As undergraduate instructors, the authors of this book all practice a “do‐talk‐do” approach to teaching and learning, whereby we integrate both inquiry‐based student learning and lecture in our classes. We encourage instructors using this book to do the same. For instructors to successfully adapt inquiry‐based approaches (as used in this book), it almost certainly is necessary to cover less material than would be covered in a semester (or quarter) of lecture‐only classes. This is because inquiry takes more time than does lecture. However, the benefits of having students take active roles in the construction of their knowledge and the development of transportable skills are well worth this trade‐off. We recognize that instructors using this book are not necessarily experts themselves in paleoclimatology. Therefore, we developed comprehensive instructor guides for each chapter to provide essential background information, detailed answer keys, and alternative implementation strategies, as well as to provide links to other supplementary materials and examples for assessment.
Audience
Because of the flexible design of these multipart exercises, they can be (and have been) used at multiple levels and with multiple audiences. Collectively the use of all of the exercises in this book would support an undergraduate course in paleoclimatology, global climate change, or paleoceanography. The select use of specific chapters or parts of chapters can also support topics in many Earth science courses (e.g. historical geology, oceanography, stratigraphy, Quaternary science).
Classroom Tested
The flexible and effective use of these exercises with multiple audiences at multiple levels is demonstrated by our classroom testing; we have used exercises from this book in our introductory geoscience courses for nonmajors, advanced courses for geoscience majors, and even in workshops for K‐12 teachers, for PhD students (e.g. Urbino Summer School on Paleoclimatology), and for undergraduate instructors. Our classroom and lab experiences, and the feedback from students and workshop participants informed the design and revisions of the exercises and the content included in the instructor guides.
In using this inquiry‐based book we hope you gain new knowledge, new skills, and greater confidence in making sense of the causes and consequences of climate change. Enjoy the challenge and the reward of working with scientific data and results!
Kristen St. John, Mark Leckie, Kate Pound, Megan Jones, and Larry Krissek
April 2021
About the Companion Website
This book is accompanied by a website, with resources for Instructors and Students.
www.wiley.com/go/stjohn/climatehistory2
The Instructor resources include:
Instructor Guides for each chapter
Figures and tables from the book
Completed versions of student Excel files
The Student resources include:
Chapter‐specific resources
Two supplementary chapters from previous edition
Chapter 1 Introduction to Paleoclimate Records
FIGURE 1.1. Cross sections (a view perpendicular to growth or accumulation) of (a) a tree, (b) a cave deposit (speleothem), (c) several tens of meters of glacial ice, (d) a coral, and (e) a sedimentary sequence.
Source: Photo credits: tree ring – http://www‐saps.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/treerings/index.htm; cave formation – Courtesy of John Haynes. Inset figure: speleothem cross section – Photo from ANSTO; Quelccaya Ice Cap – Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University; X‐ray of a Porites coral skeleton (upper) and shown in UV light (lower) – Lough, 2010, http://wires.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WiresArticle/wisId‐WCC39.html; Santa Maria Basin lake sediments, Argentina – http://tocsy.agnld.uni‐potsdam.de/ex_correlation.php.
SUMMARY
This chapter serves as an introduction to paleoclimate records. In Part 1.1, you will compare and contrast the temporal and spatial scope of five major paleoclimate archives: tree rings, speleothems, glacial ice, lake and marine sediments, and sedimentary rocks. In Part 1.2, you will consider the challenges and strategies for obtaining cores from terrestrial and marine settings. You will also consider issues of sampling, reproducibility, resolution, and cost, which are common issues for all paleoclimate archive research. In Part 1.3, you will read about the 780 000 yr‐long. Owens Lake core record, and create a summary figure to synthesize the paleoclimatic data and interpretations.
Learning Objectives
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
1 Compare and contrast tree ring, speleothem, glacial ice, lake sediment, marine sediment, and sedimentary rock paleoclimate archives.
2 Provide a rationale for which archive(s) would be best suited for different spatial and temporal constraints and scientific objectives.
3 Identify the challenges and strategies for obtaining cores from terrestrial and marine settings.
4 Explain why unique sample identification is essential and how that is achieved, as well as the importance of reproducibility, and how it can be achieved.
5 Calculate accumulation rates and explain how sample resolution is affected by accumulation rates.
6 Describe