The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) is the closest geological analog to modern anthropogenic CO₂ emissions, but its causes and the responses remain enigmatic. Coastal plain sediments can resolve this uncertainty, but their discontinuous nature requires numerous sites to constrain events. Workshop participants identified 10 drill sites that target the PETM and other interesting intervals. Our post-drilling research will provide valuable insights into Earth system responses.

In the frame of the DOVE (Drilling Overdeepened Alpine Valleys) project and with the support of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), we drilled and recovered a 252 m long sediment core from the Basadingen Through. The Basadingen Trough, once eroded by the Rhine glacier during several ice ages, reaches over 300 m under the modern landscape. The sedimentary filling represents a precious scientific archive for understanding and reconstructing past glaciations.

Western North American contains accessible and under-recognized paleolake records that hold the keys to understanding the drivers of wetter conditions in Pliocene Epoch subtropical drylands worldwide. In a 2021 ICDP workshop, we chose five paleolake basins to study that span 7° of latitude in a unique array able to capture a detailed record of hydroclimate during the Early Pliocene warm period and subsequent Pleistocene cooling. We propose new drill cores for three of these basins.

Geologists can decipher the past climates and thus better understand how future climate change may affect the Earth's complex systems. In this paper, we report on a workshop held in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, to better understand how rocks in Svalbard (an Arctic archipelago) can be used to quantify major climatic shifts recorded in the past.

Previous glaciations eroded below the ice deep valleys in the Alpine foreland, which, with their sedimentary fillings, witness the timing and extent of these glacial advance–retreat cycles. Drilling such sedimentary sequences will thus provide well-needed evidence in order to reconstruct the (a)synchronicity of past ice advances in a trans-Alpine perspective. Eventually these data will document how the Alpine foreland was shaped and how the paleoclimate patterns varied along and across the Alps.