Ubiquitous karst hydrological control on speleothem oxygen isotope variability 
in a global study

Treble, Pauline C.; Baker, Andy; Abram, Nerilie J.; Hellstrom, John C.; Crawford, Jagoda; Gagan, Michael K.; Borsato, Andrea; Griffiths, Alan D.; Bajo, Petra; Markowska, Monika; Priestley, Stacey C.; Hankin, Stuart; Paterson, David

doi:10.1038/s43247-022-00347-3

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

Ubiquitous karst hydrological control on speleothem oxygen isotope variability in a global study

MPS-Authors

/persons/resource/persons258066

Markowska, Monika
Climate Geochemistry, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Max Planck Society;

External Resource

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00347-3.pdf
(Publisher version)

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Treble, P. C., Baker, A., Abram, N. J., Hellstrom, J. C., Crawford, J., Gagan, M. K., et al. (2022). Ubiquitous karst hydrological control on speleothem oxygen isotope variability in a global study. Communications Earth & Environment, 3(1): 29. doi:10.1038/s43247-022-00347-3.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000A-638E-7

Abstract

Speleothem oxygen isotopic (δ18O) records are used to reconstruct past hydroclimate yet records from the same cave do not always replicate. We use a global database of speleothem δ18O to quantify the replicability of records to show that disagreement is common worldwide, occurs across timescales and is unrelated to climate, depth or lithology. Our global analysis demonstrates that within-cave differences in mean speleothem δ18O values are consistent with those of dripwater, supporting a ubiquitous influence of flowpaths. We present a case study of four new stalagmite records from Golgotha Cave, southwest Australia, where the isotopic differences between them are informed by cave monitoring. It is demonstrated that karst hydrology is a major driver of within-cave speleothem and dripwater δ18O variability, primarily due to the influence of fractures on flowpaths. Applying our understanding of water movement through fractures assists in quantitative reconstruction of past climate variability from speleothem δ18O records.