MADISON HILLS PALEOECOLOGY PROJECT (MPEP): CITIZEN SCIENCE AND A NOVEL APPROACH TO FUNDING A LAKE-SEDIMENT STUDY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

MPEP is an ongoing volunteer project, wholly funded by interested local citizens, who carried out a detailed bathymetric survey and used a Livingstone corer to obtain a 10.2-m soft sediment core in the deepest part (14.6-m) of Big Pea Porridge Pond in Madison, New Hampshire. The purpose of the work is to: (a) bring together private citizens to borrow and otherwise devise necessary equipment and techniques to core this relatively deep pond, (b) radiocarbon and proxy date basal and higher-level samples of the long sediment core, and (c) utilize multiple independent proxies to identify patterns of past climate change. Field work was completed in March, 2008 through ~ 0.25-m of ice that provided a sturdy, stable, and convenient work surface for deep coring. Laboratory work underway has produced preliminary results. A near-basal radiocarbon age is reported by Davis et al. (Hartshorn Symposium; this meeting), and preliminary loss-on-ignition (LOI) and chironomid data are reported by Doner et al. and Pollock et al. (Lakes Symposium & Posters; this meeting). Sampling for pollen analysis has been partly completed with contractors identified for chemical preparation and counting. Further plans may include obtaining a transect of cores from the deep core to the shore to reconstruct lake-level and local climate histories. However, the most novel contributions of the project are its local fund-raising effort, its local citizen-volunteer scientific and logistical participation, and its creation of multiple community educational opportunities, all in a setting where governmental or organizational funding would be very unlikely.