Environmental News Network - University of Oklahoma Deep Dust Project Works to Unravel Earth's Climate Past in Oklahoma's Anadarko Basin

Details: By University of Oklahoma; 09.Jan

A team of researchers at the University of Oklahoma will explore the Permian sediment of Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin, which contains dust deposits from Earth’s deep-time past.

Cheryl Porter

A team of researchers at the University of Oklahoma will explore the Permian sediment of Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin, which contains dust deposits from Earth’s deep-time past. The Anadarko Basin includes the most complete continental record of low-latitude Pangea, enabling researchers to better understand the collapse of one of Earth’s greatest glaciations, a period of colder temperatures leading up to the largest extinction in Earth’s history.

The principal investigator of the research venture, known as the Deep Dust project, is Lynn Soreghan, Ph.D., professor in the School of Geosciences, Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy. The Deep Dust project was recently awarded a $2.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation and includes researchers from OU’s School of Geosciences, the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, and the Oklahoma Geological Survey, including several early-career scientists. Several other universities are collaborators on the NSF project. Researchers include principal investigator Lynn Soreghan, Xiaolei Liu, Gilby Jepson, Sarah George, Rick Lupia, Jaqueline Lungmus and Molly Yunker.

Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin continued to collect sediment through the entire Paleozoic era, and the sediment that accumulated in the basin in Permian time contains a record of land environments, giving researchers a link to Earth’s continental past.

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University of Oklahoma Deep Dust Project Works to Unravel Earth's Climate Past in Oklahoma's Anadarko Basin