EVALUATING LATE NEOPROTEROZOIC GLACIO-AEOLIAN DEPOSITS FOR POTENTIAL TARGET PARAMETERS IN MODELING SNOWBALL EARTH WIND CONDITIONS

Aeolian sandstones are found intimately associated with Late Neoproterozoic ‘snowball Earth’ glacial deposits. Studying the nature of these aeolian deposits offers the great potential to elicit new and important information regarding the wind conditions during these extreme glacial intervals. Wind direction is the dominant paleoclimatic indicator that can be derived from aeolian deposits and one that has been largely ignored in geologic and climatic modeling studies of a snowball Earth. This objective of this proposal is to initiate a study of Late Neoproterozoic glacio-aeolian deposits from a broad paleogeographic region to build an empirical model for global wind patterns surrounding the snowball Earth glaciations. These wind direction data will then be used as targets for global circulation model (GCM) simulations of a snowball Earth.