Project Grant 2628991
- The National Science Foundation Division of Earth Sciences awarded Vanderbilt University $21,700 on August 1, 2026, under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) to investigate fire impacts on terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycling through cave archives. The research examines wildfire occurrence history and subsurface carbon effects using cave mineral deposits as paleoenvironmental records. The project conducts multi-year surface-to-cave monitoring at two sites: a northern Wyoming sagebrush steppe...
- This National Science Foundation Project Grant award of $552,632 provides funding from August 1, 2022 through July 31, 2025 to support the research project "Defining the Paleoclimate-Fire Relationship in CA Across Temporal Scales Through Integrated Monitoring, Stalagmite Studies, and Proxy System Modeling." The award is made under the NSF's Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) to support basic research expanding understanding of the integrated Earth system. Specifically, the University of...
- The National Science Foundation Office of International Science and Engineering awarded the University of Connecticut $50,000 on August 1, 2026, under the Office of International Science and Engineering program (CFDA 47.079) to support collaborative research on fire impacts on terrestrial ecosystems. The research investigates how wildfires affect soil carbon storage, subsurface carbon cycling, and plant and microbial communities by leveraging cave mineral deposits as archives of past fire...
- This three-year, $473,885 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) will fund research defining the paleoclimate-fire relationship in California across temporal scales. The award supports four objectives: 1) Monitoring three karst systems to develop process-based understanding of hydroclimate and fire tracers; 2) Building a multi-proxy karst system model linking said proxies to environmental drivers; 3) Developing comparable proxy records from ten...
- This $178,567 National Science Foundation award under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) will fund research defining the paleoclimate-fire relationship in California across temporal scales. The Ohio State University will conduct integrated monitoring of karst systems, develop stalagmite proxy records, and build a karst system model linking hydroclimate and fire proxies to environmental drivers. Researchers will analyze ten stalagmites defining latitudinal and coastal-Sierra Nevada transects...
- This National Science Foundation Project Grant award of $627,539 will fund research to define the paleoclimate-fire relationship in California across temporal scales through integrated monitoring, stalagmite studies, and proxy system modeling. Funded under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050), the award will support four key objectives from August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2025. First, the researchers will develop a process-based understanding of hydroclimate and fire tracers through cave monitoring....
- This National Science Foundation project grant of $444,727 will fund research to define the paleoclimate-fire relationship in California across temporal scales through integrated monitoring, stalagmite studies, and proxy system modeling. Funded under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050), the award will support four key objectives from August 2022 to July 2025. First, the grantee will develop a process-based understanding of hydroclimate and fire tracers through cave monitoring. Second, they...
- This $199,785 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) will fund field and laboratory tests of pyrogenic organic compounds in Australian stalagmites as a novel, high-resolution paleofire proxy. The awardee, Cornell College, will perform measurements of organic compounds like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in soil and cave dripwater before, after, and one year following a prescribed burn over the cave site. Laboratory replication of...
- The National Science Foundation Division of Environmental Biology awarded The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York $184,910 on August 1, 2026, under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) to produce long-term wildfire records for the Hawaiian Islands and assess ecosystem response to changing fire regimes. The project generates paleoclimate wildfire records spanning 2,000 years by extracting and analyzing sediment cores from lakes and wetlands across Hawaii, Maui,...
- This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Polar Programs will support collaborative research on boreal forest fire feedbacks from 2023 to 2027. The $138,467 award to the University of Colorado Denver will explore the paleohistory of short interval fires in boreal forests through analysis of lake sediment cores. Fieldwork will determine the resilience of current landscapes to short interval fires and whether these are creating novel forest structures. High-performance...
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: NSF-SNSF: FIRE IMPACTS ON THE RESPONSE OF TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS -WILDFIRES CAN HAVE SUBSTANTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS, INCLUDING POLLUTION, SOIL EROSION, AND PROFOUND, SOMETIMES IRREVERSIBLE, UPHEAVALS OF LOCAL PLANT AND MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES IN SOIL. CAVES OFFER A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO INVESTIGATE THE HISTORY OF WILDFIRE OCCURRENCE, TO PUT TODAY?S FIRE REGIMES IN CONTEXT, AND TO DETERMINE HOW FIRE AFFECTS SOIL CARBON STORAGE OVER DECADES TO MILLENNIA. THIS RESEARCH LEVERAGES THIS UNIQUE ABILITY OF CAVES TO PROVIDE ARCHIVES OF PAST WILDFIRES THROUGH THE GROWTH OF CAVE MINERAL DEPOSITS. TO TRANSLATE THE RESULTS TO THE PUBLIC, INCLUDING LOCAL STAKEHOLDERS DIRECTLY IMPACTED BY FIRE, THE PROJECT TEAM WILL COLLABORATE WITH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LAND MANAGERS WHO OVERSEE FIRE-IMPACTED LANDSCAPES. FIRE HISTORY AND IMPACTS ON THE SUBSURFACE CARBON CYCLE WILL BE INVESTIGATED AT TWO SITES: A NORTHERN WYOMING SAGEBRUSH STEPPE SITE MANAGED WITH PRESCRIBED BURNS AND A MIXED CONIFER FOREST IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA ADJACENT TO SEVERAL RECENT WILDFIRES, INCLUDING THE 2025 GREEN FIRE. MULTI-YEAR SURFACE-TO-CAVE MONITORING WILL BE USED TO ASSESS THE EFFECTS OF FIRE ON TRANSPORT, TRANSFORMATION, AND BIOGEOCHEMISTRY OF CARBON. THE TEMPORAL DIMENSION OF THE SUBSURFACE CARBON CYCLE WILL BE ADDED THROUGH RADIOCARBON MEASUREMENTS TO DETERMINE AGE. ORGANIC CARBON AND FIRE BIOMARKERS IN STALAGMITES FROM BOTH SITES WILL BE ANALYZED TO RECONSTRUCT FIRE ACTIVITY DURING PAST INTERVALS OF ABRUPT ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES. THIS WORK WILL PROVIDE GLOBALLY APPLICABLE INFORMATION ABOUT THE IMPACTS OF FIRE DISTURBANCE ON CARBON SOURCES AND SINKS ON MULTIPLE TIMESCALES, INCLUDING THE GENERATION OF RECORDS BEYOND THE HISTORICAL RECORD, AND NOVEL, COMPREHENSIVE QUANTIFICATION OF SUBSURFACE TRANSIT TIMES OF MOBILE CARBON SPECIES IN RESPONSE TO FIRE. THIS KNOWLEDGE CAN SUPPORT MORE ACCURATE CARBON CYCLE MODELS, REFINE ESTIMATES OF FIRE IMPACTS ON TERRESTRIAL CARBON EXPORT, AND REVEAL BENEFITS OF PRESCRIBED BURNS ON SOIL ORGANIC CARBON STABILIZATION. RESULTS WILL BE TRANSFERRABLE TO OTHER SAGEBRUSH STEPPE AND MIXED CONIFER FOREST LANDSCAPES IN THE WESTERN US. FURTHER, THIS WORK HAS REPERCUSSIONS FOR BROADER PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LAND MANAGEMENT GLOBALLY. THIS COLLABORATIVE US-SWISS PROJECT IS SUPPORTED BY THE U.S. NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (NSF) AND THE SWISS NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (SNSF), WHERE NSF FUNDS THE U.S. INVESTIGATOR AND SNSF FUNDS THE PARTNERS IN SWITZERLAND. THIS AWARD REFLECTS NSF'S STATUTORY MISSION AND HAS BEEN DEEMED WORTHY OF SUPPORT THROUGH EVALUATION USING THE FOUNDATION'S INTELLECTUAL MERIT AND BROADER IMPACTS REVIEW CRITERIA.- SUBAWARDS ARE NOT PLANNED FOR THIS AWARD.
Mod # | Description | ReasonForModification | Federal Obligation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not listed | $50.0k | 7/17/26 |