Sedimentology Commons^™

Sedimentary Dynamics In Tubular Sandstone Caves, Porto União, Southern Brazil, Leandro Bianchini, Julio Cesar Paisani

International Journal of Speleology

Clastic sedimentation in sandstone caves remains poorly understood, particularly in systems with tubular morphology. This study investigates sedimentation, reworking, and sediment removal dynamics in the Legru Cave system, southern Brazil, based on the integrated analysis of sedimentary facies, microstructures, and microfeatures, combined with optically stimulated luminescence dating. The results indicate that conduit infilling is dominated by high-density flows, including cohesive debris flows, partially diluted multiphase flows, and flows with intermediate rheological behavior between mud flow and hyperconcentrated flow, in addition to shallow flow alternations. Sediment supply is predominantly allochthonous, related to hillslope-derived material delivered by overland flow and mud flows, …

Geoarchaeology Of Estuarine Seascapes In Tampa Bay, Florida., Kendal R. Jackson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the geological, ecological, and archaeological histories of Tampa Bay, Florida’s largest open-water estuary system. Previous geoscientific and archaeological work has studied the evolution of Florida’s estuaries as ‘pre-anthropogenic’ ecosystems and conceptualized Indigenous maritime societies as mostly passive inhabitants of dynamic ‘natural’ environments. Further, the environmental legacies of more recent, industrial-scale estuary modification attending Florida’s 20th-century population boom have been understudied—leading to popular and scientific confusion about historical conditions. The work composing this dissertation research seeks to reconceptualize Tampa Bay as a complex mosaic of cultural seascapes that have been variously altered and modified by human societies across …

Sub-Recent Microfauna Within Allogenic Sediments At The Bottom Of A Deep Cave, Njemica (Biokovo Mt., Croatia), Tomislav Kurečić, Valentina Hajek Tadesse, Lara Wacha, Marija Horvat, Nina Trinajstić, Ivan Mišur

International Journal of Speleology

Clastic sediments deposited at the bottom of the vertical, nearly 1000 m deep Njemica Cave (Biokovo Mountain, Croatia) were analysed. Owing to the vertical morphology of the cave, the occurrences of clastic sediments are sparse. Small, up to decimetre-thick, undisturbed sediment accumulations situated near the siphon lake revealed interesting palaeontological and mineralogical data. These data are used as a useful proxy for discussing depositional processes, the provenance of the sediments and paleo-habitats of the subterranean fauna.

The sub-recent assemblages of ostracods were discovered within the sediment, and they were shown to be correlative to the known endemic species in the …

Flow Regime Evolution Of A Major Cave System In The Eastern Alps (Hirlatzhöhle, Dachstein), Lukas Plan, Gottfried Buchegger, Eva Kaminsky, Gabriella Koltai, Tanguy Racine, Jacek Szczygieł

International Journal of Speleology

The 116 km-long and 1560 m-deep Hirlatzhöhle is one of the major cave systems in the Northern Calcareous Alps (NCA; Austria). It is located in the NW part of the Dachstein, an extensive karst massif encompassing 576 km² with its highest point at 2995 m a.s.l. In contrast to most other caves in the NCA, Hirlatzhöhle comprises old (epi)phreatic passages located up to 1 km above the base level as well as two modern major drainage systems. The aim of this study is to define the palaeo- and the active flow conditions in combination with speleogenesis, and the age of …

Microbiological Study In A Gneissic Cave From Sri Lanka, With Special Focus On Potential Antimicrobial Activities, Ethige Isuru P. Silva, Pathmakumara Jayasingha, Saman Senanayake, Anura Dandeniya, Dona Helani Munasinghe

International Journal of Speleology

The emergence of antibiotic resistance is a global health crisis, thus the search for novel antimicrobial compounds has become a continuous necessity. Underexplored and extreme environments, such as cave ecosystems, have been identified as a promising potential source for the discovery of novel microorganisms with novel antimicrobial compounds (AMC). This study presents the first cave microbiological investigation in Sri Lanka, with a special preference for bioprospecting of novel AMC. The cave sediment characterization demonstrated the presence of close to strong acidic conditions (pH 3.1 – 3.3) and thus indicates the possibility of isolating acidophilic microorganisms. Eight cave wall/ceiling fungal strains …

Petrography And Provenance Of Floor Sediments From The Loutra Almopias Cave (Pella, Macedonia, Greece), Ioannis Georgiadis, Katerina Chatzopoulou, Nikolaos Kantiranis, Ioakeim Ioakeimidis, Ananias Tsirambides

International Journal of Speleology

Thirty seven floor sediment samples of Upper Pleistocene age from the Loutra Almopias Cave were collected from different beds and stratigraphic columns on the basis of their induration grade, grain distribution, and paleontological findings. Channel facies make up the bulk of the clastic sediments found in the cave passages. Slackwater facies compose the final layer of all the stratigraphic sections of the examined cave. The floor sediments are mineralogically immature, since they contain many ferromagnesian minerals, feldspars (especially plagioclase) and quartz. The extensive presence of silicate minerals means that the phyllites, gneisses, schists, ophiolitic rocks and the clastic Mariam Formation …

Review Of Curbing Catastrophe: Natural Hazards And Risk Reduction In The Modern World, Kira H. Hamman

Numeracy

Timothy H. Dixon. 2017. Curbing Catastrophe: Natural Hazards and Risk Reduction in the Modern World. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press) 300 pp. ISBN 978-1108113663.

In Curbing Catastrophe, Timothy H. Dixon explores commonalities among natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and the meltdown at Fukushima. He identifies communication failure between scientists and policy makers as a major culprit in the devastation that results from such events and offers strategies for improving that communication. He includes optional in-depth scientific and quantitative examinations of the events and the resulting devastation, making the book appropriate for use …

New Insights On Secondary Minerals From Italian Sulfuric Acid Caves, Ilenia M. D'Angeli, Cristina Carbone, Maria Nagostinis, Mario Parise, Marco Vattano, Giuliana Madonia, Jo De Waele

International Journal of Speleology

Sulfuric acid minerals are important clues to identify the speleogenetic phases of hypogene caves. Italy hosts ~25% of the known worldwide sulfuric acid speleogenetic (SAS) systems, including the famous well-studied Frasassi, Monte Cucco, and Acquasanta Terme caves. Nevertheless, other underground environments have been analyzed, and interesting mineralogical assemblages were found associated with peculiar geomorphological features such as cupolas, replacement pockets, feeders, sulfuric notches, and sub-horizontal levels. In this paper, we focused on 15 cave systems located along the Apennine Chain, in Apulia, in Sicily, and in Sardinia, where copious SAS minerals were observed. Some of the studied systems (e.g., …

The Stability Of Sand Waves In A Tidally-Influenced Shipping Channel, Tampa Bay, Florida, John Willis Gray

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tidally-influenced sandwaves are common coastal features present in various settings, including shipping channels. The main shipping channel in Tampa Bay under the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge (a.k.a. the Skyway Bridge) contains such sandwave bedforms. Between the years 2000 and 2017, these bedforms have been surveyed with multibeam echosounders (MBES) on 21 occasions with ranging coverage and quality of returns. Surveys between 2000 and 2009 used a 300 kHz Kongsberg EM3000; surveys between 2015 and 2017 used a 400 kHz Reson Seabat 7125. For comparable surveys, bathymetry, backscatter, slope, curvature, planform curvature, and profile curvature maps were created and analyzed. …

Anthropogenic Infilling Of A Bermudian Sinkhole And Its Impact On Sedimentation And Benthic Foraminifera In The Adjacent Anchialine Cave Environment, Jacquelyn N. Cresswell, Peter J. Van Hengstum, Thomas M. Iliffe, Bruce E. Williams, Gil Nolan

International Journal of Speleology

In the mid-20^th century, an inland brackish pond from Bermuda, known as Eve’s Pond, was filled with marine sediment from an adjacent coastal lagoon. At this time, an eyewitness reported “…sediment billowing out of the Green Bay Cave for days…”, which is a marine-dominated anchialine cave located proximal to the former location of Eve’s Pond (~200 m). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential impact of this infilling event on cave sedimentation and benthic meiofaunal communities, as proxied by the unicellular protists foraminifera that remain preserved in the sediment record. Eight sediment cores were collected from …

Petrographical And Geochemical Changes In Bosnian Stalagmites And Their Palaeo-Environmental Significance, Veronica Chiarini, Isabelle Couchoud, Russell Drysdale, Petra Bajo, Simone Milanolo, Silvia Frisia, Alan Greig, John Hellstrom, Jo De Waele

International Journal of Speleology

Detailed petrographic observations have been coupled with trace element and δ¹³C - δ¹⁸O analyses in order to investigate their dynamics in two Holocene Bosnian speleothems. The potential of this multiproxy approach in providing a means to extract palaeo-environmental information from stalagmites whose stable isotope signals are noisy and without obvious trends has been tested. The studied stalagmites are mostly characterized by columnar microcrystalline fabric. At the sub-millimetre scale of lamination, different microcrystalline columnar sub-types (open and closed) have been detected and classified on the basis of the observed porosity and the crystallite size. The presence of …

Miocene Contourite Deposition (Along-Slope) Near Desoto Canyon, Gulf Of Mexico: A Product Of An Enhanced Paleo-Loop Current, Shane Christopher Dunn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A Neogene contourite depositional system was identified and mapped along the DeSoto Slope in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, U.S.A. A series of drift deposits comprising the larger contourite depositional system were interpreted from a 2-D industry seismic data set. The now subsurface drift deposits are adjacent to the anomalous seabed feature, the DeSoto Canyon, and these data suggest contourite deposition and ocean currents are in integral part of the canyon’s depositional history. The contourite depositional system is underlain by an extensive, middle Miocene aged, erosional unconformity formed by ocean currents. The timing of this erosional surface is in alignment …

Sinkhole Vulnerability Mapping: Results From A Pilot Study In North Central Florida, Clint Kromhout, Alan E. Baker

Sinkhole Conference 2015

At the end of June in 2012, Tropical Storm Debby dropped a record amount of rainfall across Florida which triggered hundreds, if not thousands, of sinkholes to form which resulted in tremendous damage to property. The Florida Division of Emergency Management contracted with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Florida Geological Survey to produce a map depicting the state’s vulnerability to sinkhole formation. The three-year project began with a pilot study in three northern Florida counties: Columbia, Hamilton and Suwannee. Utilizing the statistical modeling method Weights of Evidence, results from the pilot study yielded a 93 percent success rate of …

Late Quaternary Speleogenesis And Landscape Evolution In A Tropical Carbonate Island: Pango La Kuumbi (Kuumbi Cave), Zanzibar, Nikos Kourampas, Ceri Shipton, William Mills, Ruth Tibesasa, Henrietta Horton, Mark Horton, Mary Prendergast, Alison Crowther, Katerina Douka, Patrick Faulkner, Llorenç Picornell, Nicole Boivin

International Journal of Speleology

Kuumbi Cave is one of a group of caves that underlie a flight of marine terraces in Pleistocene limestone in eastern Zanzibar (Indian Ocean). Drawing on the findings of geoarchaeological field survey and archaeological excavation, we discuss the formation and evolution of Kuumbi Cave and its wider littoral landscape. In the later part of the Quaternary (last ca. 250,000 years?), speleogenesis and terrace formation were driven by the interplay between glacioeustatic sea level change and crustal uplift at rates of ca. 0.10-0.20 mm/yr. Two units of backreef/reef limestone were deposited during ‘optimal’ (highest) highstands, tentatively correlated with MIS 7 and …

Radiaxial-Fibrous And Fascicular-Optic Mg-Calcitic Cave Cements: A Characterization Using Electron Backscattered Diffraction (Ebsd), Detlev K. Richter, Adrian Immenhauser, Rolf Dieter Neuser, Augusto Mangini

International Journal of Speleology

Electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) applied to crystal fabric research in speleothems aids in our understanding of the origin of those fabrics. A significant advantage of this approach is the three dimensional data set of crystal c-axes. Here, we show a rare case of both convergent (radiaxial-fibrous) and divergent (fascicular-optic) orientations of the c-axes in pool calcites. The seemingly defective structure of the calcite lattice resulting in radiaxial-fibrous crystal orientations is probably caused by differential incorporation of Mg during crystal growth. The observation that radiaxial-fibrous and fascicular-optic fabrics co-exist in the same pool environment is remarkable and documents the complexity of …

Microstratigraphic Logging Of Calcite Fabrics In Speleothems As Tool For Palaeoclimate Studies, Silvia Frisia

International Journal of Speleology

The systematic documentation of calcite fabrics in stalagmites and flowstones provides robustness to palaeoclimate interpretation based on geochemical proxies, but it has been neglected because it is difficult to transform crystal morphologies into numerical values, and construct fabric time series. Here, general criteria that allow for coding fabrics of calcite composing stalagmites and flowstones is provided. Being based on known models of fabric development, the coding ascribes sequential numbers to each fabric, which reflect climate-related parameters, such as changes in drip rate variability, bio-mediation or diagenetic modifications. Acronyms are proposed for Columnar types, Dendritic, Micrite, Microsparite and Mosaic fabrics, whose …

New Research In Cave Ledenica In Bukovi Vrh On Velebit Mt In Croatian Dinaric Karst, Mladen Garasic

The International Workshop on Ice Caves

No abstract provided.

Cave Deposits And Sedimentary Processes In Cova Des Pas De Vallgornera (Mallorca, Western Mediterranean), Joan J. Fornós, Joaquin Ginés, Francesc Gràcia, Antoni Merino Juncadella, Lluís Gómez-Pujol, Pere Bover

International Journal of Speleology

The Cova des Pas de Vallgornera is an important and protected coastal cave, located in the southern part of the island of Mallorca, that outstands due to its length and the complex processes involved in its speleogenesis. Although sediments are not the main topic of interest, their presence as well as their paleontological contents are valuable evidence for paleoclimatic and chronological reconstructions of the cave morphogenesis. The sedimentary infilling is characterized by a scarce presence of clastic sedimentation, mainly composed of silts and clays, which can only be found at some minor passages in the innermost parts of the cave. …

Postglacial Faunal Records From Cave Deposits In Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada, Christopher N. Jass, Greg Horne, Dave Critchley

National Cave and Karst Management Symposium 2013

In 2009, we initiated an on-going, long term research project that focuses on exploration of fossil-bearing cave deposits in Jasper National Park. Specifically, we were interested in understanding patterns of mammalian re-colonization of mountainous regions following late Pleistocene deglaciation. Our work has focused on the identification of fossil-bearing cave deposits, excavation and sampling of those deposits, and radiocarbon dating of recovered remains. Examined sites have at least an age of 9600 years BP. Research at four cave sites, located in relatively close proximity to one another, is contributing to an improved understanding of the late Quaternary record of Jasper National …

Unusual Polygenetic Void And Cave Development In Dolomitized Miocene Chalks On Barbados, West Indies, Jonathan B. Sumrall, John E. Mylroie, Hans G. Machel

International Journal of Speleology

Barbados provides an unusual case of polygenetic cave development within dolomitized chalks and marls of the Miocene Oceanics Group. These diagenetic processes are driven by a succession and interplay of tectonic uplift, fracturing, hypogene fluid injection, overprinting by mixing zone diagenesis, and mechanical and biological erosion in the current littoral zone. The significance of the voids and caves within the chalks on Barbados are: 1) these appear to be the first dissolution caves documented in dolomitized chalk, and 2) these features show a polygenetic origin documenting the diagenetic changes in lithology that allowed the development and preservation of these cave …

Provenance And Geological Significance Of Red Mud And Other Clastic Sediments Of The Mugnano Cave (Montagnola Senese, Italy), Francesco Iacoviello, Ivan Martini

International Journal of Speleology

The Mugnano cave is characterized by a thick clastic sedimentary fill showing a great variability of sedimentary facies, ranging from clay to coarse-grained sand deposits. This paper deals with combined sedimentological and mineralogical (XRD and SEM) studies of these sediments and bedrock insoluble residues in order to understand the origin and geological significance of cave deposits, with particular attention to red mud sediments, often considered as the residue of host rock dissolution. Three different sedimentary facies were recognized: i) YS, yellow sand with occasionally shell fragments, testifying the arrival of sediments from the surrounding landscape; ii) RS, red laminated mud; …

First Year Sedimentological Characteristics And Morphological Evolution Of An Artificial Berm At Fort Myers Beach, Florida, Katherine Brutsche

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Dredging is often conducted to maintain authorized depths in coastal navigation channels. Placement of dredged sediment in the form of nearshore berms is becoming an increasingly popular option for disposal. Compared to direct beach placement, nearshore berms have fewer environmental impacts such as shore birds and turtle nesting, and have more lenient sediment compatibility restrictions. Understanding the potential morphological and sedimentological evolution is crucial to the design of a nearshore berm. Furthermore, the artificial perturbation generated by the berm installation provides a unique opportunity to understand the equilibrium process of coastal morphodynamics.

Matanzas Pass and Bowditch Point, located on the …