Summary: Along the U.S. eastern seaboard and coastlines across the North Atlantic Ocean, quahog clams are a key cultural and economic resource. While clam population and habitat restoration are a focus of much research in USGS coastal ecosystem science, clamshells provide a surprising opportunity for another important type of geologic research – the study of paleoclimate. Shells contain annual banding, just like tree rings, allowing us to look many centuries into the past to understand changing environmental conditions year-by-year. This type of information is valuable to climate scientists who seek to understand large-scale climate variability and predict future environmental change. This presentation will highlight how clamshell-based climate reconstructions are built and applied by USGS researchers and collaborators. Future strategies for producing multicentury records of marine climate from key locations, including along the southeastern U.S. coastline, will also be highlighted.