Seasonal climate signals (1990–2008) in a modern Soreq Cave stalagmite as revealed by high-resolution geochemical analysis

Hunted gazelles evidence cooling, but not drying, during the Younger Dryas in the southern Levant

“…The interpretation of high-resolution cave speleothem oxygen isotope data (3) requires modern day analogs (25) and supporting oxygen isotope-based paleoclimate proxies (27,39). The current study uses oxygen isotope values obtained through the sequential sampling of gazelle tooth enamel as a proxy for the seasonal composition of environmental water; this is made possible through comparison with data on water availability obtained from complementary carbon isotope data.…”

Geochemical mapping of organic carbon in stalagmites using liquid-phase and solid-phase fluorescence

“…In the present research, we applied this approach to speleothems via a new procedure in which spectroscopic analyses are combined with a carbon extraction method that consumes only small amounts of material. Although solid-phase fluorescence has become a commonly used technique for analyzing speleothems (Crowell & White, 2012;Orland et al, 2014;Perrette et al, 2005;Webb et al, 2014), results have to be interpreted with caution (McGarry & Baker, 2000). In addition, quantifying the organic carbon content of speleothems requires a large amount of calcite for the solid/liquid extraction phase Hartland et al, 2014;Li et al, 2014;Ramseyer et al, 1997;Van Beynen et al, 2001), which is incompatible with studies of carbon fluxes over short timescales and prevents results being combined with high-resolution Solid Phase Fluorescence (SPF) analyses.…”

Roles of forest bioproductivity, transpiration and fire in a nine-year record of cave dripwater chemistry from southwest Australia

“…These records are readily obtained at high resolution (seasonal or better) using laser ablation, secondary ionisation mass spectrometry (SIMS) or synchrotron instruments (Fairchild and Treble, 2009). Such data may reveal annual chemical laminae which are useful for chronological purposes (Treble et al, 2003;Sundqvist et al, 2013;Orland et al, 2014) or to identify seasonal recharge characteristics (Borsato et al, 2007;.…”