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Elevated Grand Canyon groundwater recharge during the warm Early Holocene

Nature Geoscience volume 16, pages 915–921 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Summer rainfall is an important contributor to water budgets in western North American deserts, where intense rainfall sustains ecosystems while also causing flash floods and damaging erosion. A better understanding of Grand Canyon palaeoclimate and the long-term history of the summer monsoon from summer-sensitive palaeoclimate records will improve our ability to project future hydroclimatic changes under warmer conditions. Here we show multi-proxy evidence for an intensification of the Early Holocene (11,700–8,200 years ago) hydrological cycle linked to a stronger and expanded summer North American Monsoon from calcite oxygen and uranium isotopes in a uranium-series precisely dated stalagmite from a Grand Canyon cave. Our results suggest that subsurface infiltration was greater in the Early Holocene than today at Grand Canyon. A data–model comparison with an isotope-enabled climate model suggests that enhanced infiltration was due to an Early Holocene monsoon intensification associated with rising atmospheric temperature. Projections of a future increase in precipitation intensity or more frequent and expanded North American monsoon rain events may paradoxically result in increased subsurface infiltration at Grand Canyon and other high-altitude plateaus, even within the context of western North American aridification in a hotter climate.

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Fig. 1: Site map of the NAM domain from Central America north through the southwestern United States.
Fig. 2: Grand Canyon stalagmite (GC-1) time-series data.
Fig. 3: Correlation between δ18Oc and δ234Ui in stalagmite GC-1.
Fig. 4: Modern stable-isotope and climate data from Flagstaff, Arizona.
Fig. 5: iTRACE model precipitation amount and δ18Op for 11 ka minus 14 ka.
Fig. 6: Palaeoclimate evolution of the western United States from speleothem, ice-sheet extent and model output.

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Data availability

The GC-1 δ18Oc, δ13C and U-series data are archived with the NOAA Paleoclimatology Program at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/study/38391.

Code availability

The iTRACE outputs used in this study can be downloaded from the NCAR Climate Data Gateway (https://www.earthsystemgrid.org/dataset/ucar.cgd.ccsm4.iTRACE.html; https://doi.org/10.26024/b290-an76). iTRACE 1.3 is performed in iCESM 1.3. The iCESM 1.3 code is publicly accessible via GitHub (https://github.com/NCAR/iCESM1.3_iHESP_hires).

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Acknowledgements

We thank L. Sangaila for field assistance. G. Lucia drilled some of the U-series powders. We thank the National Park Service for permission to complete research completed under permit GRCA-2017-SCI-0055. Cave-water samples at Cave 3504 in Parashant National Monument were collected under permit PARA-2014-SCI-0001. The National Science Foundation provided funding through ATM-1405546 to UNLV and 1405557 to UNM, and for laboratory facilities through grants EAR 0521196 to UNLV and EAR 0326902 and ATM 0703353 to UNM.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geoscience, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA

    Matthew S. Lachniet

  2. Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Xiaojing Du & Sylvia G. Dee

  3. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Yemane Asmerom & Victor J. Polyak

  4. Kentucky Geological Survey, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

    Benjamin W. Tobin

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Contributions

Fieldwork and site selection were done by M.S.L. and B.W.T. M.S.L. completed all stable-isotope analyses and Y.A. and V.J.P. completed age dating. Model analysis was completed by S.G.D. and X.D. M.S.L. wrote the manuscript and completed the data analysis, with contributions from X.D., S.G.D., B.W.T., Y.A. and V.J.P. All authors contributed to finalizing and approving the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Matthew S. Lachniet.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Gabriel Bowen, Kim Beisner and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: James Super, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Grand Canyon stalagmite (GC-1) age model metadata.

Histograms show the frequency of observations for a) years represented by each sample, b) years between the center points of each sample, on the same x-axis as A), c) frequency of age model uncertainties due to time-varying growth rates and chronological age precision, and d) frequency of growth rate variations. The stalagmite δ18O and δ13C resolution is at the decadal to bi-decadal time scale, with an age model uncertainty between ~50 and 150 years. Most of the stalagmite grew between 2-3 mm per century, with a period of faster growth of 5-6 mm per century between 11,600 and 10,300 yr B2k.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Meteoric water line for Flagstaff, AZ.

Winter precipitation (NDJFMAM) are blue circles, and summer (JJASON) are orange. Cave waters (solid triangles) plot close to the Flagstaff meteoric water line and are most consistent with winter season infiltration.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Simulated North American Monsoon monthly precipitation at Grand Canyon and the core NAM region.

Top shows that iTRACE simulates the bimodal seasonal cycle at Grand Canyon (see text Fig. 3), with a rainfall minimum in June. Further, the NAM summer rainfall is stronger at 11 ka than at 14 ka at Grand Canyon, consistent with the rise in δ18Oc and δ234Ui evidence of increasing effective moisture. Winter season rainfall rate also increased with a small rise in δ18Op (see Extended Data Figure 5).

Extended Data Fig. 4 Simulated wind field evolution and δ18O of water vapor at 11ka relative to 14 ka.

The anomaly difference in wind field and δ18O of water vapor shows a weakening of the polar jet (weaker westerlies) at 11 ka relative to 14 ka and an increase in summer (JJAS) water vapor δ18O. Box shows the ‘core’ NAM region; red star is Grand Canyon.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Comparison between GC-1 estimated δ18Op, global mean surface temperature (GMST), and iTRACE seasonal δ18Op.

a) is the GMST record of Ref. 40 showing the deglacial rise in temperature; grey envelope is 10 and 90% percentiles; b) is stalagmite GC-1 estimated as δ18Op on the VSMOW scale, using the GMST record and the water-calcite fractionation equation of Ref. 29, c) through E) are δ18Op for JJA, mean annual, and DJF seasons from the iTRACE simulation. The steep rise in GC-1 estimated δ18Op at 11 ka closer to the summer δ18Op end-member value suggests that summer monsoon moisture was an increasing proportion of total infiltration at 11 ka relative to 14 ka, evidence supportive of an Early Holocene NAM strengthening.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Covarying Grand Canyon stalagmite and vegetation carbon isotope values.

Comparison of speleothem GC-1 δ13C COPRA modeled proxy data (left axis, solid black line) and bat guano-derived insect chitin δ13C values (right axis, open circles; Ref. 57) from the Grand Canyon suggests that changing speleothem δ13C was related to a change in δ13C value of vegetation. Vertical bars are the YD and Greenland interstadial events GS-1a-e.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table 1

U-series data for stalagmite GC-1.

Supplementary Table 2

Stable-isotope data for cave-water samples.

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Lachniet, M.S., Du, X., Dee, S.G. et al. Elevated Grand Canyon groundwater recharge during the warm Early Holocene. Nat. Geosci. 16, 915–921 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01272-6

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