Devils Hole
A 500,000 year temperature record of unprecedented accuracy

[A USGS hydrologist holds a 36-cm long core of calcite retrieved by SCUBA-based drilling 30 meters below the water table in Devils Hole, Nevada]

Devils Hole is a tectonically-formed subaqueous cavern in south-central Nevada. Vein calcite, which coats the walls of this cavern, has provided an extremely well-dated 500,000-year record of variations in temperature as well as other paleoclimatic parameters. These records have provided information that has posed several challenges to the orbital theory of the causation of the Pleistocene glaciations, suggested insights regarding the duration of current Holocene climate, provided a new chronology for the Vostok, Antarctica, ice core paleotemperature record, and yielded insights on the age of the groundwater in the principal aquifer of southern Nevada.

(CLICK HERE for a discussion of questions frequently asked about Devils Hole.)

For additional information, see description of NRP former project Interface of Paleoclimatology and Aquifer Geochemistry, or contact Isaac J. Winograd ijwinogr@usgs.gov.