In 1996, the drillship JOIDES Resolution drilled offshore Venezuela in a deep ocean basin called the Cariaco Basin on Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 165. In this activity, developed by Katherine Ellins, Jeri Rodgers, and James Cano, learners use geochemical data from ODP Core 1002D in the Carioca Basin to study its archive of past climate in Mesoamerica, and to test the hypothesis that drought may have contributed to collapse of the Mayan culture of Central America.
