Richey J.N., Hollander, D.J., Flower, B.P. and Eglinton, T.I., 2011, Merging late Holocene Molecular Organic and Foraminiferal-Based Geochemical Records of SST in the Gulf of Mexico: Paleoceanography, doi:10.1029/2010PA002000.
Julie Richey, Ph.D.
Biography
Paleoclimate and Environmental Change
Establishing a baseline of natural climate variability over the past 2,000 years is essential to accurately predicting regional responses to anthropogenic climate change. My research focus is reconstructing temperature and hydroclimatic variability in the Gulf of Mexico/Subtropical Atlantic Ocean using a broad range of different paleoclimate archives. In addition to generating proxy-based paleoclimate records, I am working on proxy development and calibration studies to improve our ability to quantify past changes in temperature, salinity and precipitation in both terrestrial and marine environments.
Coral Paleoclimate
Research Interests
- Using stable isotopes and trace elements to reconstruct climate from coral skeletons
- Investigating the effect of water quality and coral ecology on geochemical proxies
Field Sites
- US Virgin Islands
- Dry Tortugas National Park
- Florida Keys Reef Tract
Project web page: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/spcmsc/science/coral-reef-ecosystem-studies-crest
Holocene Paleoclimate in the Gulf of Mexico
Project web page: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/spcmsc/science/climate-and-environmental-change-gulf-mexico-and-caribbean
Research Interests
- Paleoclimate Reconstruction from Marine and Lake Sediments
- Coral Reefs as Climate Archives
- Paleoceanographic Proxy Calibration
Field Sites
- Garrison Basin (Gulf of Mexico)
- Fisk Basin (Gulf of Mexico)
- Pigmy Basin (Gulf of Mexico)
- Sediment Trap Site (Gulf of Mexico)
Education
- Ph. D. - Marine Geology (2010), Univ. of South Florida, College of Marine Science
- M.S. - Marine Geology (2007), Univ. of South Florida, College of Marine Science
- B.S. - Geological Sciences/Biological Sciences (2004), The Ohio State Univ.
Science and Products
Date published: March 25, 2019
Status: Active Reconstructing Ocean Circulation & Hydroclimate in the Subtropical Atlantic
Changes in rainfall patterns as a result of anthropogenic climate change are already having large ecological and socioeconomic impacts across the globe. Increases in flood damage, wildfire damage, and agricultural losses can all be attributed to anomalous rainfall events and prolonged droughts across the United States in recent years. Additionally, Atlantic Ocean circulation, which has a large...
Contacts: Julie Richey, Ph.D.
Date published: October 5, 2018
Status: Active Coral Reef Ecosystem Studies (CREST)
The specific objectives of this project are to identify and describe the processes that are important in determining rates of coral-reef construction. How quickly the skeletons of calcifying organisms accumulate to form massive barrier-reef structure is determined by processes of both construction (how fast organisms grow and reproduce) and destruction (how fast reefs break down by mechanical...
Date published: March 28, 2018
Status: Active Reef History and Climate Change
Ecosystem-wide study of seafloor erosion, changing coastal water depths, and effects on coastal storm and wave impacts along the Florida Keys Coral Reef Tract in South Florida.
Contacts: Julie Richey, Ph.D., Jennifer A Flannery
Attribution: St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center
Date published: March 7, 2018
Status: Active Paleoclimate Reconstruction from Marine and Lake Sediments
Instrumental measurements of climate variables (e.g., precipitation, temperature, ocean circulation, etc.) are only available over the past century or less. In order to quantify the rate and magnitude of natural climate variability going back in time beyond the 20th century, scientists rely on paleoclimate reconstructions.
Contacts: Julie Richey, Ph.D.
Date published: February 27, 2018
Status: Active Paleoceanographic Proxy Calibration
A sediment trap time series in the northern Gulf of Mexico is used to better assess the control of environmental variables (e.g., temperature and salinity) on the flux of both microfossils and molecular fossils to the sediments. The information gained from sediment trap studies is used to develop better proxy-based estimates of past oceanographic conditions from analyses of microfossils and ...
Contacts: Julie Richey, Ph.D., Caitlin Reynolds
Date published: February 22, 2018
Status: Active Climate and Environmental Change in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean
This project documents paleoceanographic, climatic, and environmental changes in the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent land areas over the last 10,000 years. The paleoenvironmental data is used to determine rates of change in the past, and to better understand both the natural and anthropogenic factors that contribute to climate variability on inter-annual to millennial timescales.
Year Published: 2021
Holocene evolution of sea-surface temperature and salinity in the Gulf of Mexico
Flows into and out of the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) are integral to North Atlantic ocean circulation, and help facilitate poleward heat transport in the Western Hemisphere. The GoM also serves as a key source of moisture for much of North America. Modern patterns of sea-surface temperature (SST) and salinity in the GoM are influenced by the Loop...
Thiumalai, Kaustubh; Richey, Julie N.; Quinn, Terrence M.
Year Published: 2021
Remote and local drivers of Pleistocene South Asian summer monsoon precipitation: A test for future predictions
South Asian precipitation amount and extreme variability are predicted to increase due to thermodynamic effects of increased 21st-century greenhouse gases, accompanied by an increased supply of moisture from the southern hemisphere Indian Ocean. We reconstructed South Asian summer monsoon precipitation and runoff into the Bay of Bengal to assess...
Clemens, Steven C; Yamamoto, Masanobu; Thirumalai, Kaustubh; Giosan, Liviu; Richey, Julie N.; Nilson-Kerr, Katrina; Rosenthal, Yair; Anand, Pallavi; McGrath, Sarah M
Year Published: 2020
Imprint of regional oceanography on foraminifera of eastern Pacific Coral Reefs
The marginal marine environments of the eastern tropical Pacific (ETP) serve as an ideal natural laboratory to study how oceanographic and climatic variability influence coral-reef ecosystems. Reefs along the Pacific coast of Panamá span a natural gradient of nutrients, pH, and temperature as a result of stronger seasonal upwelling in the Gulf of...
Zamora-Duran, Angelica Maria; Aronson, Richard B.; Leichter, James J.; Flannery, Jennifer A.; Richey, Julie N.; Toth, Lauren T.
Year Published: 2019
PaCTS 1.0: A crowdsourced reporting standard for paleoclimate data
The progress of science is tied to the standardization of measurements, instruments, and data. This is especially true in the Big Data age, where analyzing large data volumes critically hinges on that data being standardized. Accordingly, the lack of community-sanctioned data standards in paleoclimatology has largely precluded the benefits of Big...
Kehrwald, Natalie M.; Khider, Deborah; Emile-Geay, Julien; McKay, Nicholas P.; Gili, Yolanda; Garijo, Daniel; Ratnakar, Varun; Brewer, Peter; Csank, Adam; Dassie, Emilie; Delong, Kristine; Felix, Thomas; Gray, William; Jonkers, Lucas; Kahle, Michael; Kaufman, Darrell S.; Richey, Julie N.; Schmittner, Andreas; Sutherland, Elaine Kennedy; Alonso-Garcia, Montserrat; Sebastian, Bertrand; Bothe, Oliver; Bunn, Andrew; Chevalier, Manuel; Francus, Pierre; Frappier, Amy; Goring, Simon; Martrat, Belen; McGregor, Helen V.; Allen, Kathryn J.; Arnaud, Fabien; Axford, Yarrow L.; Barrows, Timothy T.; Bazin, Lucie; Pilaar Birch, S.E.; Bradley, Elizabeth; Bregy, Joshua; Capron, Emilie; Cartapanis, Olivier; Chiang, Hong-Wei; Cobb, Kim; Debret, Maxime; Dommain, Rene; Du, Jianghui; Dyez, Kelsey; Emerick, Suellyn; Erb, Michael; Falster, Georgina; Finsinger, Walter; Fortier, Daniel; Gauthier, Nicolas; George, Steven; Grimm, Eric; Hertzberg, Jennifer; Hibbert, Fiona; Hillman, Aubrey; Hobbs, William; Huber, Matthew; Hughes, Anna L. C.; Jaccard, Samuel; Jiaoyang, Ruan; Kienast, Markus; Konecky, Bronwen; Le Roux, Gael; Lyubchich, Vyacheslav; Novello, Valdir; Olaka, Lydia; Partin, Judson W.; Pearce, Christof; Phipps, Steven J.; Pignol, Cecile; Pietrowska, Natalia; Poli, Maria-Serena; Prokopenko, Alexander; Schwanck, Franciele; Stepanek, Christian; Swann, George E. A.; Telford, Richard; Thomas, Elizabeth R.; Thomas, Zoe; Truebe, Sarah; von Gunten, Lucien; Waite, Amanda; Weitzel, Nils; Wilhelm, Bruno; Williams, John B.; Winstrup, Mai; Zhao, Ning; Zhou, Yuxin
Year Published: 2019
Considerations for Globigerinoides ruber (white and pink) paleoceanography: Comprehensive insights from a long‐running sediment trap
We present a detailed analysis of the seasonal distribution, size, morphological variability and geochemistry of co‐occurring pink and white chromotypes of Globigerinoides ruberfrom a high‐resolution (1–2 weeks) and long‐running sediment trap time series in the northern Gulf of Mexico. We find no difference in the seasonal flux of the two...
Richey, Julie N.; Thirumalai, Kaustubh; Khider, Deborah; Reynolds, Caitlin E.; Partin, Judson W.; Quinn, Terrence M.
Year Published: 2019
Reconstructing precipitation in the tropical South Pacific from dinosterol 2H/1H ratios in lake sediment
The South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) is the Southern Hemisphere’s largest precipitation feature supplying freshwater to 11 million people. Despite its significance, little is known about the location and intensity of SPCZ precipitation prior to instrumental records, hindering attempts to predict precipitation changes in a warming world. Here...
Maloney, Ashley E.; Nelson, Daniel B.; Richey, Julie N.; Prebble, Matthew; Sear, David A.; Hassall, Jonathan D.; Langdon, Peter G.; Croudace, Ian W.; Zawadzki, Atun; Sachs, Julian P.
Year Published: 2018
Quantifying uncertainty in Sr/Ca-based estimates of SST from the coral Orbicella faveolata
The strontium to calcium ratio (Sr/Ca) in aragonitic skeletons of massive corals provides a proxy for sea surface temperature (SST) that can be used to reconstruct paleoclimates across decades, centuries, and, potentially, millennia. Determining the reproducibility of Sr/Ca records among contemporaneous coral colonies from the same region is...
Flannery, Jennifer A.; Richey, Julie N.; Toth, Lauren T.; Kuffner, Ilsa B.; Poore, Richard Z.
Year Published: 2018
Environmental controls on the geochemistry of Globorotalia truncatulinoides in the Gulf of Mexico: Implications for paleoceanographic reconstructions
Modern observations of planktic foraminifera from sediment trap studies help to constrain the regional ecology of paleoceanographically valuable species. Results from a weekly-resolved sediment trap time series (2008–2014) in the northern Gulf of Mexico demonstrate that 92% of Globorotalia truncatulinoides ...
Reynolds, Caitlin E.; Richey, Julie N.; Fehrenbacher, Jennifer S.; Rosenheim, Brad E.; Spero, Howard J.Attribution: St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, Climate Research and Development Program, Land Change Science Program, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands)
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Reynolds, C.E., Richey, J.N., Fehrenbacher, J.S., Rosenheim, B.E., and Spero, H.J., 2018, Environmental controls on the geochemistry of Globorotalia truncatulinoides in the Gulf of Mexico: Implications for paleoceanographic reconstructions, Marine Micropaleontology, v.142, pp. 92-104, ISSN 0377-8398, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marmicro.2018.05.006.
Year Published: 2018
A North American Hydroclimate Synthesis (NAHS) of the Common Era
This study presents a synthesis of century-scale hydroclimate variations in North America for the Common Era (last 2000 years) using new age models of previously published multiple proxy-based paleoclimate data. This North American Hydroclimate Synthesis (NAHS) examines regional hydroclimate patterns and related environmental indicators,...
Rodysill, Jessica R. ; Anderson, Lesleigh; Cronin, Thomas M.; Jones, Miriam C.; Thompson, Robert S.; Wahl, David B.; Willard, Debra A.; Addison, Jason A.; Alder, Jay R.; Anderson, Katherine H.; Anderson, Lysanna; Barron, John A.; Bernhardt, Christopher E.; Hostetler, Steven W.; Kehrwald, Natalie M.; Khan, Nicole; Richey, Julie N.; Starratt, Scott W.; Strickland, Laura E.; Toomey, Michael; Treat, Claire C.; Wingard, G. LynnAttribution: Florence Bascom Geoscience Center, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, Water Resources, Energy Resources Program, Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program, Land Change Science Program, Mineral Resources Program, National Laboratories Program, Science and Decisions Center, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands), Region 7: Upper Colorado Basin, Region 1: North Atlantic-Appalachian
Year Published: 2018
Pronounced centennial-scale Atlantic Ocean climate variability correlated with Western Hemisphere hydroclimate
Surface-ocean circulation in the northern Atlantic Ocean influences Northern Hemisphere climate. Century-scale circulation variability in the Atlantic Ocean, however, is poorly constrained due to insufficiently-resolved paleoceanographic records. Here we present a replicated reconstruction of sea-surface temperature and salinity from a site...
Thirumalai, Kaustubh; Quinn, Terrence M.; Okumura, Yuko; Richey, Julie N.; Partin, Judson W.; Poore, Richard Z.; Moreno-Chamarro, EduardoAttribution: St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands)
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Thirumalai, K., T. M. Quinn, Y. Okumura, J. N. Richey, J. W. Partin, R. Z. Poore, and E. Moreno-Chamarro (2018), Pronounced centennial-scale Atlantic Ocean climate variability correlated with Western Hemisphere hydroclimate, Nature communications, 9(1), 392.
Year Published: 2017
Millennial-scale variability in the local radiocarbon reservoir age of south Florida during the Holocene
A growing body of research suggests that the marine environments of south Florida provide a critical link between the tropical and high-latitude Atlantic. Changes in the characteristics of water masses off south Florida may therefore have important implications for our understanding of climatic and oceanographic variability over a broad spatial...
Toth, Lauren T.; Cheng, Hai; Edwards, R. Lawrence; Ashe, Erica; Richey, Julie N.Attribution: St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands)
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Toth, L.T., Cheng, H., Edwards, R.L., Ashe, E., and Richey, J.N., 2017, Millennial-scale variability in the local radiocarbon reservoir age of south Florida during the Holocene: Quatenary Geochronology, v. 42, pp. 130-143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quageo.2017.07.005.
Year Published: 2017
Fidelity of the Sr/Ca proxy in recording ocean temperature in the western Atlantic coral Siderastrea siderea
Massive corals provide a useful archive of environmental variability, but careful testing of geochemical proxies in corals is necessary to validate the relationship between each proxy and environmental parameter throughout the full range of conditions experienced by the recording organisms. Here we use samples from a coral-growth study to test the...
Kuffner, Ilsa B.; Roberts, Kelsey E.; Flannery, Jennifer A.; Morrison, Jennifer M.; Richey, Julie N.Attribution: St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands)
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Kuffner, I. B., K. E. Roberts, J. A. Flannery, J. M. Morrison, and J. N. Richey (2017) Fidelity of the Sr/Ca proxy in recording ocean temperature in the western Atlantic coral Siderastrea siderea. Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 18, doi:10.1002/2016GC006640.
Pre-USGS Publications
Date published: February 10, 2020
Sediment trap in Gulf of Mexico recovered one last time, marking the culmination of a 12-year time series
Julie Richey, Caitlin Reynolds, and colleagues retrieved a sediment trap from the northern Gulf of Mexico during a 3-day cruise (February 7–9, 2020) on board the R/V Pelican. The trap was deployed in 1,200 m of water in 2008 and had been collecting sinking particles from the water column to be used in paleoclimate proxy-calibration studies.
Date published: May 30, 2019
New method to reconstruct winter ocean temperatures of the past
This article is part of the Spring 2019 issue of the Earth Science Matters Newsletter.
Attribution: Climate Research and Development Program
Date published: May 9, 2019
USGS Scientists set out to unlock the mysteries of prehistoric droughts in the Caribbean
Scientists spent the last two weeks collecting sediment cores from Lake Enriquillo, a hypersaline lake in the Western Dominican Republic. The sediment cores will help scientists reconstruct the frequency of Caribbean drought and determine the controls on hydroclimate during the Holocene.
Date published: February 28, 2019
USGS scientists publish results from a long-term study of Globigerinoides ruber in the Gulf of Mexico, aiding in reconstruction of past climatic conditions
The planktic foraminifer, Globigerinoides ruber, is the most widely used proxy recorder for reconstructing past temperature and salinity in the low to mid-latitude oceans.
Date published: June 18, 2018
A new study in Marine Micropaleontology proposes a new proxy for winter sea surface temperatures in the past
Caitlin Reynolds and Julie Richey (Geologists, USGS, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center), along with colleagues from University of South Florida, Oregon State University and University of California Davis, published a new paper.
Attribution: St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center
Date published: February 28, 2018
New Study Links Salinity Changes in the Gulf of Mexico to Changes in Rainfall Patterns in the Western Hemisphere
The project is part of a collaborative effort to better understand how sea surface temperature and salinity have varied over the Holocene, or the past 10,000 years. The approach is to measure the magnesium to calcium ratios and oxygen isotopic composition in planktic foraminifera deposited on the seafloor.
Date published: May 30, 2017
Precipitation changes in the western tropical Pacific over the past millennium
This article is part of the Spring 2017 issue of the Earth Science Matters Newsletter.
Attribution: Climate Research and Development Program