Past Climates in the Badlands
The Friends of Dubois Badlands was lucky to have team of Geologists from the University of Minnesota spend a few weeks in the Badlands. In July, 2024 they were gathering data to do a report that will lead to better understanding of the paleo climates of the time - about 50 million years ago. Since this was a very warm period they hope to shed light on our current warm period. We were lucky to have Dr, Emily Beverly, the professor in charge, present an interesting talk about their work on July 2, 2024.. "Past climates in the Painted Hills can inform our future Studying the early Eocene carbon cycle perturbations and hyperthermal events provide an excellent analog for the predicted levels of warming and rapid increases in pCO2. WE hope to show how rapid pCO2 increases, global warming, and the resulting hydrologic cycle intensification increase the magnitude of weathering and sediment yield in the past, which today cause billions of dollars in damage to infrastructure and ecosystems from soil loss, erosion, and increased flooding ."
