Speleothem Science

From Process to Past Environments

Ian J. Fairchild, Andy Baker

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781444361070
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Meteorology & Climatology

Speleothems (mineral deposits that formed in caves) are currently giving us some of the most exciting insights into environments and climates during the Pleistocene ice ages and the subsequent Holocene rise of civilizations. The book applies system science to Quaternary environments in a new and rigorous way and gives holistic explanations the relations between the properties of speleothems and the climatic and cave setting in which they are found. It is designed as the ideal companion to someone embarking on speleothem research and, since the underlying science is very broad, it will also be invaluable to a wide variety of others. Students and professional scientists interested in carbonate rocks, karst hydrogeology, climatology, aqueous geochemistry, carbonate geochemistry and the calibration of climatic proxies will find up-to-date reviews of these topics here. The book will also be valuable to Quaternary scientists who, up to now, have lacked a thorough overview of these important archives.

Additional resources for this book can be found at: www.wiley.com/go/fairchild/speleothem.

APPENDIX 1
Archiving speleothems and speleothem data

Even a rudimentary understanding of speleothem-forming systems leads one to understand that they are vulnerable and that many speleothem samples, particularly stalagmites, are irreplaceable. Hence, at the present time, there is an urgent need for the community of scholars who study speleothems to adopt appropriate protocols for archiving speleothem samples and data, so that previous work is captured and future researchers can build on this work. This concern is part of the wider issue of minimizing destructive activity in caves and hence balancing scientific research with conservation (Frappier, 2008). Although archaeological investigations show that human disturbance and removal of speleothems has occurred since antiquity (e.g. Moyes, 2007), there has been a surge of specific targeted removal of material of palaeoclimatic interest from accessible sites since the 1960s. Currently, many of the original investigators are now retiring from their studies. In much of the world there are no specific legal restrictions on this activity, and the only protection for the deposits and the cave aesthetic by such sampling are the scruples of the scientists involved. On the other hand, in show caves and legally protected sites, a high degree of oversight of sampling is usually present, which in some cases restricts sampling to drilling of core material (methods for which are summarized by Spötl and Mattey (2012)) and/or removal from sites invisible to normal visitors, often coupled with requirements to restore the original visual appearance. Even in cases where the cave aesthetic damage is limited or temporary, the collected speleothems are scientifically a non-renewable resource. Most geologists have regarded speleothems simply as a type of rock sample and have been slow to grasp the necessity for conservation through archiving. If instead, one regards them as an archaeological resource, then the necessity for thorough documentation of the context and properties of the material is more obvious.

In the UK, good practice in archaeological archiving is summarized in Brown (2007) and has at its core the creation of a stable, ordered, accessible archive that is both documentary and material in nature. The recommendations go beyond what has been thought appropriate for speleothem studies, partly because of the complex teams that work at archaeological sites, but the salient features are still applicable. An overriding concern is that at the beginning of the investigation, the ultimate repository of the remaining speleothem and other samples, and the data derived from them, should be identified. Because it would be meaningless to deposit samples without information on their provenance and significance, attention is focused on the need to maintain documentation continually to accompany the samples. A tricky issue is that archaeological practice expects that written permission is given by the landowner (i.e. the owner at the time of the fieldwork) for the investigation and removal of material. Title is then normally formally transferred to the receiving museum who require this to be clear in order to loan material to researchers in the future. In speleothem studies, two differences from archaeological studies are (i) it is unusual for formal written permission to have been obtained for sampling, and (ii) future researchers are much more likely than archaeologists to need to re-sample specimens destructively. For this reason, it is pragmatic to suggest that the final repository of collections should be, as at present, in university or research institute collections where specialist expertise exists, rather than necessarily in museums.

Recommendations on good practice are as follows.

1 For a given research collection, an electronic catalogue of samples should be maintained. This should summarize as a minimum the following: sample number/code, geographic coordinates of cave entrance, general location in cave system, nature of material and sampling (e.g. previously broken stalagmite, cored flowstone, etc.), date of collection and collectors, approximate age range of sample, cross-reference to archives of field data, laboratory studies and publications. In many countries, there is a formal (cadastral) numbering system for locations. If this catalogue is advertised on the World Wide Web, the chances of optimal collaborations and site conservation are maximized, with the expectation that the original collectors will have priority to complete their programme of study and maintain discretion over access.

2 A documentary archive should be created and maintained, including field notes and organized data on field relationships (e.g. cave plan showing exact surveyed position, stratigraphic/spatial relationships, drip hydrology and hydrogeochemistry, etc.), and data and meta-data to accompany the speleothem samples. The optimum specification for hard-copy archives to be useful in the long term is rigorous (Brown, 2007): the archive should be indexed, free from metal fastenings and self-adhesive labels, no folded pages, stored horizontally in acid-free cardboard boxes at a fixed temperature in the range 13–19 °C at a fixed humidity in the range 45–60%. Electronic data files, digital images including scans of speleothem samples at different stages of processing, and scanned copies of all documents should be stored and backed up at a different location. Given the frailty of all electronic media, there needs to be a copy on a permanent server that is regularly backed-up. A recent development is that some national funding agencies now make arrangements for data archiving; this is an extension of good practice from other related fields such as marine science where the necessity for data archiving has long been recognized.

3 The material archive should be stored in appropriate conditions for geological materials (for example as set out in Brunton et al. (1985) and Museums & Galleries Commission (1993)). Archaeological collections can include (i) bulk finds of common material, (ii) sensitive (high-value finds) and (iii) by-products of scientific sub-sampling. The equivalents in speleothem science might be (i) reworked, small or poorly preserved material that has no immediate value, (ii) archived portions (e.g. halves for speleothems) of samples (iii) labelled remains of sampled portions which, together with scans of specimens, allow the exact position of sub-samples to be determined. Robust bulk finds can be stored together in boxes, but valuable material ought to be packed individually supported by inert plastic foam (e.g. Plastazote^®) to prevent movement. Labelled multiple sub-samples are better unwrapped, but secured, for example in cut-outs in foam.

4 Responsibility for the archiving rests with the lead principal investigator, with aspects delegated to co-investigators, contract project scientists or technical staff where appropriate. If the final repository is a museum, assistance with some aspects of curation and archiving may be available.

5 Good practice in scientific research is that numerical data should be available to the community once presented in a publication. Some funding agencies go further in terms of placing data in an archive once organized and verified as analytically correct. Irrespective of the state of national data centres, in the case of palaeoclimate data there is an obvious repository for data from across the world, run by the United States National Climatic Data Center at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/paleo.html, from which data were used to produce several diagrams in this book. The speleothem section data are listed under investigator and geographic region. A key issue is the provision of adequate metadata to accompany the proxy time series data, including cave plans. It should be borne in mind that the data could well be accessed by users who are not particularly familiar with speleothem records, so a clear indication of uncertainties involved in their use should be provided. If the data are lodged at the time of publication, the latter will contain information by which the user can judge issues related to the quality of the age model or factors affecting the proxy variable.

An example of a country in which action is being taken is Switzerland. Firstly a meta-database, then a physical archive for cave samples of all types is being constructed, under the auspices of the speleological commission of the Swiss Academy of Sciences (M. Luetscher, personal communication, 2010).

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• I: Scientific and geological context
• II: Transfer processes in karst
• III: Speleothem properties
• IV: Palaeoenvironments
• APPENDIX 1: Archiving speleothems and speleothem data
• References
• Index
• Color Plates