Abstract Recent work suggests that the C- and O-isotope composition of laminated soil carbonate rinds can provide high-resolution (100 s yr/sample) information about hydrologic processes and vegetation over tens of thousands of years. However, while this archive can potentially provide quantitative reconstructions, most interpretations have thus far been qualitative. In this study, we show how modern soil data and “clumped” isotope paleothermometry can be leveraged to constrain the conditions of rind formation for a sample from the western Colorado Plateau, Utah, USA. We can thus quantitatively interpret rind isotope values as vegetation composition (%C3–plants) and soil water oxygen isotope composition (δ18Osoil–water) over 35–5 ka. We validate the approach by demonstrating consistency between our record and other paleoarchives from the western USA. Laminated soil carbonate rinds therefore represent a new avenue for sub-millennial scale, quantitative investigations of paleoclimatology, paleoecology, archeology, and modeling questions down to the level of individual soils.

中文翻译：

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层状土壤碳酸盐皮作为科罗拉多高原的古气候档案

摘要 最近的工作表明，层状土壤碳酸盐外皮的 C 和 O 同位素组成可以提供有关数万年来水文过程和植被的高分辨率（100 s 年/样本）信息。然而，虽然这个档案可以提供定量的重建，但迄今为止大多数解释都是定性的。在这项研究中，我们展示了如何利用现代土壤数据和“聚集”同位素古温度测量来限制来自美国犹他州西部科罗拉多高原的样品的外皮形成条件。因此，我们可以将果皮同位素值定量解释为植被组成（%C3-植物）和土壤水氧同位素组成（δ18Osoil-water）超过 35-5 ka。我们通过证明我们的记录与来自美国西部的其他古档案之间的一致性来验证该方法。因此，层状土壤碳酸盐外皮代表了亚千年尺度、古气候学、古生态学、考古学和建模问题的定量研究的新途径，直到单个土壤的水平。