Although it may seem like an unlikely place, I’ve recently begun to take my research underground: studying sediments and formations in caves as sources of information about past conditions at the surface.

Some of this work has focused perennial ice accumulations in caves.  In 2015, I received funding from the American Philosophical Society to study a recently discovered ice cave in Idaho. The cave contains over 30 m of ice and organic matter that accumulated over the past several centuries.  Ice stalagmites in the cave are possibly up to 2000 years old.  I presented a paleoclimate interpretation from both types of ice accumulations in a 2018 paper in GSA Bulletin.

I’m currently studying a cave in northern Utah that also contains ice that accumulated over the past several centuries.  This cave is particularly interesting because of the carbonate mineral precipitates that form as water freezes.

For my research as a Fulbright Visiting Professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Innsbruck in 2018 I designed a stable isotope study of carbonate speleothems from Whiterocks Cave in Utah.

This work involved the design and deployment of an automated sampler to collect dripwater in the cave.  That device has continued to collect series of water samples that I’m analyzing to determine how the chemistry of water entering the cave varies between different seasons.