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Title: | Eight-years of cave monitoring at Golgotha Cave, SW Australia: implications for speleothem paleoclimate records |
Authors: | Treble, PC Fairchild, IJ Baker, AA Bradley, C Wood, A McGuire, E |
Keywords: | Western Australia Caves Forests Oxygen Monitoring Water Quaternary period Rain |
Issue Date: | 29-Jun-2014 |
Publisher: | Australasian Quaternary Association Inc |
Citation: | Treble, P. C., Fairchild, I. J., Baker, A., Bradley, C., Wood, A., & McGuire, L. (2014). Eight-years of cave monitoring at Golgotha Cave, SW Australia: implications for speleothem paleoclimate records. Paper presented at the AQUA Biennial Meeting The Grand Hotel, Mildura, 29th June - 4th July, 2014. |
Abstract: | Speleothems are an important archive of paleoenvironmental information but a thorough understanding of processes are necessary for their interpretation. In order to better understand speleothem records from the climatically-sensitive southwest region of WA, we have conducted a detailed eight-year monitoring study at Golgotha Cave, southwest WA. Oxygen isotopic data demonstrated that the majority of water moved through the porous Quaternary calcarenite as matrix-flow with an inferred transit time of <1 year. A zone of high-flow dripwater is fed by high-magnitude rainfall events (Treble et al., 2013). Prior calcite precipitation (PCP) signals of increased Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca in dripwater are attributed to stalactite deposition. This signal is enhanced at low-flow sites and minimised at the high-flow site as degassing and subsequent stalactite deposition are a function of drip interval. Long-term rising trends found in most solutes are attributed via a mass-balance approach to increasing forest bioproductivity, consistent with an increase in forest understorey following a low-intensity burn in 2006. A fundamental message from this study is that individual speleothem records from within Golgotha Cave will differ, e.g. speleothem δ18O at our high-flow site is biased to recording high-magnitude rainfall events, whilst PCP will be the main driver of speleothem Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca at low-flow sites. Forest biomass appears to be modulating transpiration-sensitive ions and these may serve as an indicator of fire history. |
Gov't Doc #: | 9602 |
URI: | https://aqua.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/AQUA2014-program.pdf http://apo.ansto.gov.au/dspace/handle/10238/9618 |
Appears in Collections: | Conference Publications |
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AQUA2014-program.pdf | 1.46 MB | Adobe PDF | ![]() View/Open |
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