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Full-Text Articles in Earth Sciences
Low Impact Sampling Of Speleothems – Reconciling Scientific Study With Cave Conservation, Claire L.V. Macgregor, John C. Hellstrom, Jon D. Woodhead, Russell N. Drysdale, Rolan S. Eberhard
Low Impact Sampling Of Speleothems – Reconciling Scientific Study With Cave Conservation, Claire L.V. Macgregor, John C. Hellstrom, Jon D. Woodhead, Russell N. Drysdale, Rolan S. Eberhard
International Journal of Speleology
Speleothems are increasingly valued as important paleoclimate archives and yet the removal of samples from caves can come at a cost to natural heritage, impacting delicate environments with limited mechanisms for repair. Conservation of cave environments is a key responsibility for scientists and, with this in mind, we are working to develop and implement techniques that allow us to extract valuable scientific data, with minimal impact. In this study, we demonstrate the utility of low-impact reconnaissance dating surveys on caves in southern Tasmania and southwest Western Australia as a precursor to the removal of stalagmites for paleoclimate reconstruction. Small flakes …
Continuous Color Model As A Tool To Improve Speleothem Age Model Development, Celia Campa-Bousoño, Ángel García-Pérez, Ana Moreno, Miguel Iglesias, Hai Cheng, R Lawrence Edwards, Heather Stoll
Continuous Color Model As A Tool To Improve Speleothem Age Model Development, Celia Campa-Bousoño, Ángel García-Pérez, Ana Moreno, Miguel Iglesias, Hai Cheng, R Lawrence Edwards, Heather Stoll
International Journal of Speleology
Because they can archive a variety of geochemical proxies and be precisely and accurately dated with the U-Th decay series chronometer, stalagmites are widely used for paleoclimate reconstructions. However, limitations in the use of this chronometer arise because U-Th dating is analytically time consuming, expensive, and requires a relatively large sample size. These limitations restrict the number of absolute dates usually obtained, which can result in significant uncertainties in the age model and inhibit the ability to archive high resolution records of environmental variability, particularly in those stalagmites where there are variations in growth rate not constrained by U-Th dates. …
Upper Pleistocene And Holocene Palaeoenvironmental Records In Cueva Mayor Karst (Atapuerca, Spain) From Different Proxies: Speleothem Crystal Fabrics, Palynology And Archaeology., Virginia Martínez-Pillado, Arantza Aranburu, Juan Luis Arsuaga, Blanca Ruiz-Zapata, Maria José Gil-García, Heather Stoll, Iñaki Yusta, Eneko Iriarte, José Miguel Carretero, R. Lawrence Edwards, Hai Cheng
Upper Pleistocene And Holocene Palaeoenvironmental Records In Cueva Mayor Karst (Atapuerca, Spain) From Different Proxies: Speleothem Crystal Fabrics, Palynology And Archaeology., Virginia Martínez-Pillado, Arantza Aranburu, Juan Luis Arsuaga, Blanca Ruiz-Zapata, Maria José Gil-García, Heather Stoll, Iñaki Yusta, Eneko Iriarte, José Miguel Carretero, R. Lawrence Edwards, Hai Cheng
International Journal of Speleology
The Cueva Mayor karst system of Atapuerca, in Northern Spain, hosts a highly significant record of human occupation from the Pleistocene. The climatic context of the human activities during the Pleistocene-Holocene for this inland site has not been well constrained, since existing records of the palaeoclimatic evolution of the Northern Iberian Peninsula are from more distal coastal and high-elevation sites. In this study, we interpret the palaeoenvironmental information recorded on the petrography of a stalagmite and the pollen spectra of the Sierra de Atapuerca karst system during the last 20 kyr. The integration of both types of records has allowed …
Scientific Drilling Of Speleothems – A Technical Note, Christoph Spötl, David Mattey
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 …
A Note On The Occurrence Of A Crayback Stalagmite At Niah Caves, Borneo, Joyce Lundberg, Donald A. Mcfarlane
A Note On The Occurrence Of A Crayback Stalagmite At Niah Caves, Borneo, Joyce Lundberg, Donald A. Mcfarlane
International Journal of Speleology
Crayback stalagmites have mainly been reported from New South Wales, Australia. Here we document a small crayback in the entrance of Painted Cave (Kain Hitam), part of the Niah Caves complex in Sarawak, Borneo. Measuring some 65 cm in length and 18 cm in height, this deposit is elongate in the direction of the dominant wind and thus oriented towards the natural tunnel entrance. It shows the classic humpbacked long profile, made up of small transverse segments or plates, in this case the tail extending towards the entrance. The dark blue-green colour down the centre suggests that cyanobacterial growth follows …
Report Of A Three-Year Monitoring Programme At Heshang Cave, Central China, Chaoyong Hu, Gideon M. Henderson, Junhua Huang, Zhenghong Chen, Kathleen R. Johnson
Report Of A Three-Year Monitoring Programme At Heshang Cave, Central China, Chaoyong Hu, Gideon M. Henderson, Junhua Huang, Zhenghong Chen, Kathleen R. Johnson
International Journal of Speleology
Heshang Cave is situated in central China (30°27’N, 110°25’E; 294 m) in the middle reaches of the Yangtze Valley, a region strongly impacted by the East Asian Monsoon. It contains large annually-laminated Holocene and late Pleistocene stalagmites which capture past monsoon behaviour with seasonal resolution, and could enhance understanding of the amplitude and frequency of monsoon behaviour in different climate states. In this paper, we present results of a 3-year monitoring programme at Heshang. T loggers outside the cave agree closely with T data from nearby meteorological stations. T at the site of growth of the largest recovered stalagmite averages …
Annually Laminated Speleothems: A Review, Andy Baker, Claire L. Smith, Catherine Jex, Ian J. Fairchild, Dominique Genty, Lisa Fuller
Annually Laminated Speleothems: A Review, Andy Baker, Claire L. Smith, Catherine Jex, Ian J. Fairchild, Dominique Genty, Lisa Fuller
International Journal of Speleology
This review of annually laminated speleothems firstly considers the four types of annual laminae found within speleothems: fluorescent laminae formed by annual variations in organic matter flux; visible or petrographic laminae, formed by annual variations in calcite texture or fabric; calcite-aragonite couplets; and finally trace element laminae. The methods available to confirm the annual nature, or otherwise, of lamina deposition are reviewed. We consider the use of annual laminae in chronology building, with particular relevance to palaeoclimate reconstructions. Finally, the use of annual lamina width as a palaeoclimate proxy is reviewed.
Palaeoclimate Research In Villars Cave (Dordogne, Sw-France), Dominique Genty
Palaeoclimate Research In Villars Cave (Dordogne, Sw-France), Dominique Genty
International Journal of Speleology
Villars Cave is a typical shallow cave from South-West France (45.44°N; 0.78°E; 175 m asl) that has provided several speleothem palaeoclimatic records such as the millennial scale variability of the Last Glacial period and the Last Deglaciation. Monitoring the Villars cave environment over a 13-year period has helped in the understanding of the stable isotopic speleothem content and in the hydrology. For example, it was demonstrated that most of the calcite CaCO3 carbon comes from the soil CO2, which explains the sensitivity of the δ13C to any vegetation and climatic changes. Drip rate monitoring, carried …
Climatic Differences And Similarities Between Indian And East Asian Monsoon Regions Of China Over The Last Millennium: A Perspective Based Mainly On Stalagmite Records, Ming Tan
International Journal of Speleology
Cave sediments, especially stalagmites, have been providing absolute dated climate records that can extend from the present to over 500,000 years ago. Based on the reconstructed temperature time series, a comprehensive overview of the climatic differences and similarities between the Indian and the East Asian Monsoon regions of China over the last millennium is presented. Evidence from accurately dated and high-resolution records including stalagmites, ice cores and tree rings show that there was a “Medieval Warm Period” (around 1000 to 1400 AD) in north and east China where climate is dominated by the East Asian monsoon; whilst no such interval …