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Geology

International Journal of Speleology

Journal

Speleothem

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Incision History Of Glenwood Canyon, Colorado, Usa, From The Uranium-Series Analyses Of Water-Table Speleothems, Victor J. Polyak, Harvey R. Duchene, Donald G. Davis, Arthur N. Palmer, Margaret V. Palmer, Yemane Asmerom Jul 2013

Incision History Of Glenwood Canyon, Colorado, Usa, From The Uranium-Series Analyses Of Water-Table Speleothems, Victor J. Polyak, Harvey R. Duchene, Donald G. Davis, Arthur N. Palmer, Margaret V. Palmer, Yemane Asmerom

International Journal of Speleology

Uranium-series analyses of water-table-type speleothems from Glenwood Cavern and “cavelets” near the town of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, USA, yield incision rates of the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon for the last ~1.4 My. The incision rates, calculated from dating cave mammillary and cave folia calcite situated 65 and 90 m above the Colorado River, are 174 ± 30 m/My for the last 0.46 My and 144 ± 30 m/My for the last 0.62 My, respectively. These are consistent with incision rates determined from nearby volcanic deposits. In contrast, δ234U model ages (1.39 ± 0.25 My; 1.36 ± 0.25 …


Scientific Drilling Of Speleothems – A Technical Note, Christoph Spötl, David Mattey Jan 2012

Scientific Drilling Of Speleothems – A Technical Note, Christoph Spötl, David Mattey

International Journal of Speleology

This short article provides detailed descriptions of custom-made and commercially available hand-held drilling gear and options for water-flushing units specifically designed to obtained good-quality core material from speleothems even in remote cave regions. We use small-diameter (6-7 mm) diamond drill bits to obtain aliquots of calcite (as little as a few hundreds of milligram) from the interior of the basal part of in-situ stalagmites. These small cores are used to date the onset of stalagmite growth and occasionally to obtain other compositional information. Larger diameter drill bits produce cores 25-32 mm in diameter and up to 1.3 m in length …


Littoral Dripstone And Flowstone--Non-Spelean Carbonate Secondary Deposits, Danko Taborosi, Kevin Stafford Jan 2003

Littoral Dripstone And Flowstone--Non-Spelean Carbonate Secondary Deposits, Danko Taborosi, Kevin Stafford

International Journal of Speleology

Speleothem-like dripstone and flowstone deposits can form in the non-spelean environments of marine notches on tropical carbonate coastlines. Hereby termed “littoral dripstone” and “littoral flowstone” to distinguish them from genuine cave deposits, they reflect the basic speleothem types: draperies, stalactites, stalagmites, and columns. Nevertheless, these formations lack the luster and crystallinity of cave analogues, and are not nearly as well-developed, dense, and massive. They are composed of layered microcrystalline aragonite and calcite, are generally highly porous, and invariably overlie dissolutional and bioerosional karren. Because true speleothems, often found in the remnants of solution voids breached by coastal erosion, are also …