Awardee: Scott Lydon
Department: Geography
Funding Source: La Kretz Center Graduate Grant
I investigate how past climatic variability has altered carbon sequestration in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Yosemite National Park, California. Wetlands in these systems are sensitive to variations in precipitation and temperature. The last 2,000 years of climatic change is often welldocumented within the sediment of such wetlands. Thus, sediment cores from the Delta and Yosemite allow me to address how periods of warming, cooling, flooding, and drought have impacted carbon accumulation rates throughout much of the Holocene. While closely collaborating with researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey, I hope to better understand long-term carbon sequestration processes. Such research may serve to inform California’s carbon credits program and the United States more broadly.