This project is analyzing lava samples from lava tubes at Craters of the Moon National Monument using X-ray diffraction (XRD) to determine their mineralogical composition. The data collected will contrast the surface with the interior. When exposed to high temperatures in an oxidizing environment over periods of weeks to months in a laboratory experiment, the mineral olivine (common in basalt) develops a thin veneer of hematite, which can mask its spectral signature. Venus is difficult to study remotely (thick atmosphere) and the extreme temperatures at the surface (475°C) and atmospheric pressures (90 bars) makes the surface uninhabitable and difficult to study using landers or rovers (Fegley et al., 1995). However, olivine has been detected on Venus remotely, since it has absorptions in one of few spectral “windows” of Venus’ atmosphere that allow light to pass. Therefore, the objective is to determine if Lava tube interiors are an adequate analog for Venus. If there is a trend in specular hematite coating on interior surfaces of lava tubes, then it indicates that it is a good match for experimental results under Venus temperature conditions (Filiberto et al., 2020). If the surface layer is hematite-bearing and lacks olivine, but the interior contains olivine, then we might be able to study high-T weathering processes on Earth, in this environment. If it is more silicic (olivine free) the compositions of the surface could indicate that early Venus was cooler, wetter, and potentially more habitable (e.g. Basilevsky et al., 2012).

Dendrochronology is the science of measuring tree-ring widths and dating them to their exact year of formation. Furthermore, this technique can be used to date environmental events such as floods and droughts, and to study climate change in a particular region based on the characteristics of the measured tree-ring samples. The purpose of this research is to gather climate signals embedded in the samples’ growth rates to get a better understanding of the impacts of past climate phenomena, such as volcanic eruptions and monsoon events, in the region. The methods include scanning and dating tree rings as well as generating Blue-Intensity data to measure the density of the rings using computer programs, CooRecorder and CDendro. Preliminary results indicated that measurements from tree rings show common fluctuations in past climate responses that can be correlated with known climate events, such as floods and droughts. Therefore, utilizing climate data gathered from tree-ring cores may help relate climate change caused by past natural occurrences to the environmental impacts of anthropogenic activities on climate change today and in the future. Ultimately, this will hopefully lead to the design of new infrastructures that will help us respond to climate change by lessening the impacts of industrialization on our planet.