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As Earth's atmospheric temperatures and human populations increase, more people are becoming vulnerable to natural and human-induced disasters. This is particularly true in Central America, where the growing human population is experiencing climate extremes (droughts and floods), and the region is susceptible to geological hazards, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and environmental deterioration in many forms (soil erosion, lake eutrophication, heavy metal contamination, etc.). Instrumental and historical data from the region are insufficient to understand and document past hazards, a necessary first step for mitigating future risks. Long, continuous, well-resolved geological records can, however, provide a window into past climate and environmental changes that can be used to better predict future conditions in the region. The Lake Izabal Basin (LIB), in eastern Guatemala, contains the longest known continental records of tectonics, climate, and environmental change in the northern Neotropics. The basin is a pull-apart depression that developed along the North American and Caribbean plate boundary ∼ 12 Myr ago and contains > 4 km of sediment. The sedimentological archive in the LIB records the interplay among several Earth System processes. Consequently, exploration of sediments in the basin can provide key information concerning: (1) tectonic deformation and earthquake history along the plate boundary; (2) the timing and causes of volcanism from the Central American Volcanic Arc; and (3) hydroclimatic, ecologic, and geomicrobiological responses to different climate and environmental states. To evaluate the LIB as a potential site for scientific drilling, 65 scientists from 13 countries and 33 institutions met in Antigua, Guatemala, in August 2022 under the auspices of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF). Several working groups developed scientific questions and overarching hypotheses that could be addressed by drilling the LIB and identified optimal coring sites and instrumentation needed to achieve the project goals. The group also discussed logistical challenges and outreach opportunities. The project is not only an outstanding opportunity to improve our scientific understanding of seismotectonic, volcanic, paleoclimatic, paleoecologic, and paleobiologic processes that operate in the tropics of Central America, but it is also an opportunity to improve understanding of multiple geological hazards and communicate that knowledge to help increase the resilience of at-risk Central American communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demanding precision of triple oxygen isotope (Δ17 O) analyses in water has restricted their measurement to dual-inlet mass spectrometry until the recent development of commercially available infrared laser analyzers. Laser-based measurements of triple oxygen isotope ratios are now increasingly performed by laboratories seeking to better constrain the source and history of meteoric waters. However, in practice, these measurements are subject to large analytical errors that remain poorly documented in scientific literature and by instrument manufacturers, which can effectively restrict the confident application of Δ17 O to settings where variations are relatively large (∼ 25–60 per meg). We present our operating method of a Picarro L2140-i cavity ring-down spectrometer (CRDS) during the analysis of low-latitude rainwater where confidently resolving daily variations in Δ17 O (differences of ∼ 10–20 per meg) was desired. Our approach was optimized over ∼ 3 years and uses a combination of published best practices plus additional steps to combat spectral contamination of trace amounts of dissolved organics, which, for Δ17 O, emerges as a much more substantial problem than previously documented, even in pure rainwater. We resolve the extreme sensitivity of the Δ17 O measurement to organics through their removal via Picarro's micro-combustion module, whose performance is evaluated in each sequence using alcohol-spiked standards. While correction for sample-to-sample memory and instrumental drift significantly improves traditional isotope metrics, these corrections have only a marginal impact (0–1 per meg error reduction) on Δ17 O. Our post-processing scheme uses the analyzer's high-resolution data, which improves δ2 H measurement (0.25 ‰ error reduction) and allows for much more rich troubleshooting and data processing compared to the default user-facing data output. In addition to competitive performance for traditional isotope metrics, we report a long-term, control standard root mean square error for Δ17 O of 12 per meg. Overall performance (Δ17 O error of 6 per meg, calculated by averaging three replicates spread across distinct, independently calibrated sequences) is comparable to mass spectrometry and requires only ∼ 6.3 h per sample. We demonstrate the impact of our approach using a rainfall dataset from Uganda and offer recommendations for other efforts that aim to measure meteoric Δ17 O via CRDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demanding precision of triple oxygen isotope (Δ17O) measurements in water has restricted their measurement to dual-inlet mass spectrometry until the recent development of commercially available infrared-laser analyzers. Laser-based measurements of triple oxygen isotope ratios are now increasingly performed by laboratories seeking to better constrain the source and history of meteoric waters. However, in practice, these measurements are subject to large analytical errors that remain poorly documented in scientific literature and by instrument manufacturers, which can effectively restrict the confident application of Δ17O to settings where variations are relatively large (~ 25-60 per meg). We present our operating method of a Picarro L2140-i cavity ringdown spectrometer during the analysis of low-latitude rainwaters where confidently resolving daily variations in Δ17O (differences of ~10-20 per meg) was desired. Our approach was optimized over ~3 years and uses a combination of published best-practices plus additional steps to combat spectral contamination of trace amounts of dissolved organics, which, for Δ17O, emerges as a much more substantial problem than previously documented, even in pure rainwater. We resolve the extreme sensitivity of the Δ17O measurement to organics through their removal via Picarro's micro-combustion module, whose performance is evaluated each sequence using alcohol-spiked standards. While correction for sample-to-sample memory and instrumental drift significantly improves traditional isotope metrics, these corrections have only marginal impact (0-1 per meg error reduction) on Δ17O. Our post-processing scheme uses the analyzer's high-resolution data, which improves δ2H measurement (0.25 ‰ error reduction) and allows for much more rich troubleshooting and data-processing compared to the default user-facing data output. In addition to competitive performance for traditional isotope metrics, we report a longterm, control standard root-mean-square-error for Δ17O of 11 per meg. Overall performance (Δ17O error of 7 per meg, calculated by averaging 3 replicates spread across distinct, independently calibrated sequences) is comparable to mass spectrometry and requires only ~6.3 h per sample. We demonstrate the impact of our approach using a rainfall dataset from Uganda and offer recommendations for other efforts that aim to measure meteoric Δ17O via CRDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reconstructions of global hydroclimate during the Common Era (CE; the past ∼2000 years) are important for providing context for current and future global environmental change. Stable isotope ratios in water are quantitative indicators of hydroclimate on regional to global scales, and these signals are encoded in a wide range of natural geologic archives. Here we present the Iso2k database, a global compilation of previously published datasets from a variety of natural archives that record the stable oxygen (δ18O) or hydrogen (δ2H) isotopic compositions of environmental waters, which reflect hydroclimate changes over the CE. The Iso2k database contains 759 isotope records from the terrestrial and marine realms, including glacier and ground ice (210); speleothems (68); corals, sclerosponges, and mollusks (143); wood (81); lake sediments and other terrestrial sediments (e.g., loess) (158); and marine sediments (99). Individual datasets have temporal resolutions ranging from sub-annual to centennial and include chronological data where available. A fundamental feature of the database is its comprehensive metadata, which will assist both experts and nonexperts in the interpretation of each record and in data synthesis. Key metadata fields have standardized vocabularies to facilitate comparisons across diverse archives and with climate-model-simulated fields. This is the first global-scale collection of water isotope proxy records from multiple types of geological and biological archives. It is suitable for evaluating hydroclimate processes through time and space using large-scale synthesis, model–data intercomparison and (paleo)data assimilation. The Iso2k database is available for download at 10.25921/57j8-vs18 (Konecky and McKay, 2020) and is also accessible via the NOAA/WDS Paleo Data landing page: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/29593 (last access: 30 July 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reconstructions of global hydroclimate during the Common Era (CE; the past ~ 2000 years) are important for providing context for current and future global environmental change. Stable isotope ratios in water are quantitative indicators of hydroclimate on regional to global scales, and these signals are encoded in a wide range of natural geologic archives. Here we present the Iso2k database, a global compilation of previously published datasets from a variety of natural archives that record the stable oxygen (δ18O) or hydrogen (δ²H) isotopic composition of environmental waters, which reflect hydroclimate changes over the CE. The Iso2k database contains 756 isotope records from the terrestrial and marine realms, including: glacier and ground ice (205); speleothems (68); corals, sclerosponges, and mollusks (145); wood (81); lake sediments and other terrestrial sediments (e.g., loess) (158); and marine sediments (99). Individual datasets have temporal resolutions ranging from sub-annual to centennial, and include chronological data where available. A fundamental feature of the database is its comprehensive metadata, which will assist both experts and non-experts in the interpretation of each record and in data synthesis. Key metadata fields have standardized vocabularies to facilitate comparisons across diverse archives and with climate model simulated fields. This is the first global-scale collection of water isotope proxy records from multiple types of geological and biological archives. It is suitable for evaluating hydroclimate processes through time and space using large-scale synthesis, model-data intercomparison and (paleo)data assimilation. The Iso2k database is available for download at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.11553162 (McKay and Konecky, 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]