Studies of Cave Sediments : Physical and Chemical Records of Paleoclimate

John E. Mylroie and Ira D. Sasowsky' Caves occupy incongruous positions in both our culture and our science. The oldest records of modem human culture are the vivid cave paintings from southern France and northern Spain, which are in some cases more than 30,000 years old (Chauvet, et ai, 1996). Yet, to call someone a "caveman" is to declare them primitive and ignorant. Caves, being cryptic and mysterious, occupied important roles in many cultures. For example, Greece, a country with abundant karst, had the oracle at Delphi and Hades the god of death working from caves. People are both drawn to and mortified by caves. Written records ofcave exploration exist from as early as 852 BC (Shaw, 1992). In the decade of the 1920's, which was rich in news events, the second biggest story (as measured by column inches of newsprint) was the entrapment of Floyd Collins in Sand Cave, Kentucky, USA. This was surpassed only by Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic (Murray and Brucker, 1979). Front Matter....Pages i-x Lithofacies and Transport of Clastic Sediments in Karstic Aquifers....Pages 1-22 Sediment and Sediment-Associated Contaminant Transport Through Karst....Pages 23-46 Palaeomagnetic Analysis of Sediments in The Buchan Caves, Southeastern Australia, Provides a Prelate Pleistocene Date for Landscape and Climate Evolution....Pages 47-69 Paleomagnetic Analysis of a Long-Term Sediment Trap, Kooken Cave, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, USA....Pages 71-81 Provenance of Suspended Sediment Discharged from a Karst Aquifer Determined by Clay Mineralogy....Pages 83-93 Reading Virginia’s Paleoclimate from the Geochemistry and Sedimentology of Clastic Cave Sediments....Pages 95-106 Glacially-Influenced Sediment Cycles in the Lime Creek Karst, Eagle County, Colorado....Pages 107-122 Cave Sediments and Denuded Caverns in the Laški Ravnik, Classical Karst of Slovenia....Pages 123-134 Paleoclimate Records from Speleothems in Limestone Caves....Pages 135-175 Uranium-Series Dating of Speleothems: Current Techniques, Limits, & Applications....Pages 177-197 Paleoclimate Information from Speleothems: The Present as a Guide to the Past....Pages 199-226 Influence of Depositional Environment on Devils Hole Calcite Morphology and Petrology....Pages 227-241 Speleothems from the High-Alpine Spannagel Cave, Zillertal Alps (Austria)....Pages 243-256 Isotope Stage 11, the “super-Interglacial”, from a North Norwegian Speleothem....Pages 257-272 Establishing a Speleothem Chronology for Southwestern Oregon....Pages 273-302 Silicates in Carbonate Speleothems, Guadalupe Mountains, New Mexico, U.S.A.....Pages 303-311 Reliquiae Diluvianae Alter : Last Interglacial Flood Deposits in the Caves of the West Indies....Pages 313-322 Back Matter....Pages 323-329 This book is for geoscience researchers and students with interests in climate change, paleohydrology, and sedimentology. Studies of Cave Sediments is unique in that it is the first comprehensive volume on cave sediments, provides case-studies from around the world, gives guidance on appropriate applications of techniques, and their limitations, synthesizes methods that can be used to decipher complex deposits, and includes chemical deposits (speleothems) as well as clastic sediments Suitable for geoscience researchers and students with interests in climate change, paleohydrology, and sedimentology, this title focuses on cave sediments, gives guidance on appropriate applications of techniques, and their limitations, and synthesizes methods that can be used to decipher complex deposits.