Event Details: Lake sediments and shorelines in terminal basins provide an unequivocal record of wet conditions in the geologic record. In this talk, I will show that wetter conditions in the western United States are not just restricted to recent Pleistocene glacial periods and use hydrologic scaling relationships to quantify past hydroclimate in the southwestern United States. Such reconstructions are important targets for assessing the performance of climate model simulations of the terrestrial water cycle across geologic periods. Additionally, I will show ongoing complementary work linking lithium accumulation in lacustrine basins to past climate via changes in evapoconcentration and basin water balance, as recorded in the (isotope) geochemistry of authigenic lacustrine minerals from sediment cores. While recent work to enhance the supply of domestic lithium sources has demonstrated that some lithium-rich clay deposits do require hydrothermal inputs associated with volcanic activity, our results demonstrate, across a diversity of basins in the western United States and South America, that past climate changes also played an important role in sedimentary lithium enrichment.