LAS can be used as a climate proxy in a variety of environments. It has the two crucial characteristics of such proxies: (1) rapid measurement speed, making determination of a high-resolution record practical, and (2) a clear conceptual link between climate process and instrument response, which can be readily validated through selected ground-truth measurements.
Our pilot studies have demonstrated that LAS can provide a rapid, reliable estimate of variations in relative abundance of several climatically sensitive sediment components. We have investigated detection of four such components.