Dr. Fowell's principal research interests include reconstruction of ancient ecosystems and climates through identification of pollen and spores preserved in lacustrine sediments or rocks. Her thesis on Mesozoic pollen of the Newark Supergroup, eastern United States, documented an abrupt turnover in regional vegetation coincident with the Triassic/Jurassic boundary. These results support hypotheses that a geologically sudden mass extinction at the end of the Triassic period annihilated both plants and animals.
Currently, Dr. Fowell is collaborating with colleagues from U. Ohio, U. Rhode Island, and the U. South Carolina to reconstruct changes in Mongolian paleoclimate over the past 10,000 years, as the Earth emerged from an ice age. Today, Mongolia lies to the north of the region deluged by rain during the summer monsoon. Desert vegetation in the south gives way to dry steppe and forest steppe vegetation in the central and northern parts of the country. If the monsoon system were stronger in the past, this change should be reflected by an increase in precipitation and a change in the regional vegetation. In order to identify such changes, Dr. Fowell is examining the palynological record contained in sediment core from 5 lakes in northern and central Mongolia. In addition, she is working to compile a record of modern pollen rain over the Mongolian steppe, an ecosystem which may be the closest modern analogue for the vegetation of Beringia during the last glacial maximum. Collection of modern pollen from this environment will facilitate comparisons with the paleovegetation of Beringia and enhance paleoclimate reconstructions of ice-age Alaska.
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