Alexander Janelle

I am broadly interested in the intersection between karst, water resources, and natural and anthropogenic climate change.

Texas' climate is at the convergence between the wet southeast and arid southwest. While this transition historically occurred at the 100th Meridian, it has been moving eastward bringing drier conditions to central Texas. My dissertation research compares proxy data produced from speleothems (cave formations) to climate models in order to better understand what processes are controlling changes in regional aridity patterns.

Specific research projects include:
1) Modern cave monitoring for the development of speleothem proxy models (growth rate, trace elements, and stable isotopes)
2) Speleothem and fossil bone geochronology (U-Th)
3) Production of high-resolution speleothem climate proxy records and comparison to global climate models for the last deglaciation
4) Surface and groundwater monitoring of an urbanizing karst landscape