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The Great Maya Droughts:
A GK-12 Activity Utilizing
ODP Core 1002D
Jeri C. Rodgers
NSF GK-12 Fellow, University of Texas Institute for Geophysics
James Cano Earl Warren High School, San Antonio Texas
Kathy Ellins University of Texas Institute for Geophysics
Our Villain:
Chac:
God of Rain
“The Long-
Lipped God”
Purpose of the Activity
• Targets 11th-12th graders in GMO (Geology,
Meteorology and Oceanography) courses, as well as IPC
(Integrated Physical and Chemistry)
• Teaches concepts which will help students attain GMO
TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills)
objectives
• Utilizes current technology, which is unusual in present
lessons available to secondary teachers
• Relates geophysical studies to an interesting historical
mystery
• Acquaints students with Excel techniques
• Teaches world history, culture, geography, and mythology
Outline of Presentation
• Introduce the Maya area, history, and mystery
of Maya city abandonment
• Introduce the Cariaco Basin Ocean Drilling
Project and the assumptions made in using
Core 1002D Ti data as a proxy for rainfall
• Introduce Lake Chichancanab core data as a
CaC03/S proxy for rainfall
•Maya
history
and area
Maya Civilization: 2,000 BC to 950 AD
Pre-Classic Period: 800 BC until 250 AD
•Two collapses: 280 AD and 380 AD
Classic Period from 250 AD to 950 AD
•Major population decline between 67-93% of population lost and cities abandoned
Post-Classic Period from 950 AD to 1500s
Hodell, noaa website
Left: Yucatan Peninsula showing Maya Lowlands and points of
interest. Right: Temple 1 at Tikal, the funerary pyramid of Hasaw
Chan K’awil
Hodell, noaa website
Climate regions of the Maya region:
SA = Semiarid, AW = Tropical Savanna, AM = Tropical
Monsoon, AF = Tropical Rainforest
The Cariaco Basin
Jaimes, 2003
Preliminary Data for the Activity
• Core 1002D-H taken by JOIDES
Resolution 1995-1996 within the
Cariaco Basin
• The basin is a silled, anoxic, pull-apart
basin, which allows for deposition of
undisturbed laminated sediments
• Workers measured concentration of
titanium (Ti) vs. depth for 30 cm section
of laminated sediment, with calibrations of
laminations based upon C14 dates
ODP
database
Assumptions in Using Cariaco
Basin Core 1002 Data
• Rainfall amounts were comparable in the
Yucatan Peninsula and the Cariaco Basin
• Laminated core could be used as “tree rings”
to measure climate and date those
measurements
• The concentration of titanium (Ti) in
sediment layers can serve as a proxy for
rainfall amounts in the sedimentary layers
Correspondence of Yucatan and Cariaco
Basin with Respect to the ITCZ
Haug et al., 2003
Anoxic basins allow preservation of
laminations because there is no
bioturbation
Why Ti?
• Titanium (Ti) occurs in ilmenite and rutile – both
forms of TiFeO3
• They are common in detrital sediment
• Their weight means that they are washed off the
continent in relationship to river energy
• They are non-reactive in water and sediments
• Note: The Asian tsunami of 2004 washed up
enough ilmenite in Thailand that they are
considering mining it for titanium!
Figure 7. Muruwai Beach, North Island, New Zealand (11 January 2005.) Photograph by James
Shook <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Muriwai_Beach_02.jpg>, accessed September 15,
2008. The black sand is a mixture of iron, titanium, vanadium and other materials volcanic in origin.
Excel spread sheet with data used for the activity.
All charts are plotted from this data summary.
Hodell, noaa website
Lake Chichancanab
Correlative study by Hodell et al. (Nature, 1995)
using %CaCO3 vs. %S as a rainfall proxy
Products of this GK-12 Assignment
• Maya Activity
• Power point with history and mythology of
the Maya
• ASLO Oral Presentation (February
2005)
• GSA-SC Workshop (April, 2005)
chaired by Joel Stevens
Whatever Happened To….?
Chak
He was replaced by:
Tlaloc – Toltec God of Rain
Acknowledgements and References
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Dr. Paul Mann and Marcy Davis of UTIG
ODP Researchers for providing core photos
GK-12 Workshop participants
Haug, Gerald H., Detlaf Gunther, Larry C. Peterson, Daniel M. Sigman, Konrad A.
Hughen, Geat Aeschlimann (2003) Climate and the collapse of Maya Civilization.
Nature 299:1731-1735.
Hodell, David A., Jason H. Curtis, and Mark Brenner (1995) Possible role of climate in
the collapse of Classic Maya civilization. Nature 375:391-394.
Jaimes, Martha A. (2003) Paleogene to Recent tectonic and paleogeographic evolution
of the Cariaco Basin, Venezuela
David Hodell provided slides for educational use through
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/slides/slideset/12/12_196_cslide.html
Data for ODP core obtained via
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/haug2001/cariaco
_ti.txt