Changes in Earth’s climate as we observe them today have a profound impact on the various spheres that make Earth a habitable planet. Isotope geochemical tools allow us to trace climate change in the geologic past and establish rates and magnitudes of global warming and changes in precipitation. Reconstructing the interplay between global climate change and mountain building allows us to establish climate change histories that may serve as templates for future climate projections.
Earth surface processes and associated biodiversity change in mountain regions are tightly coupled to these long-term climate change histories as they respond to the same systemic drivers. In brief, we use the isotopic fingerprint of climate, biodiversity and geodynamic processes to understand Earth System dynamics in the geologic past.
