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Paleoclimate and growth rates of speleothems in the northwestern Iberian Peninsula over the last two glacial cycles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Heather M. Stoll ,
Ana Moreno ,
Ana Mendez-Vicente ,
Saul Gonzalez-Lemos ,
Montserrat Jimenez-Sanchez ,
Maria Jose Dominguez-Cuesta ,
R. Lawrence Edwards ,
Hai Cheng  and
Xianfeng Wang
Heather M. Stoll*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Oviedo, Oviedo 33005, Spain
Ana Moreno
Affiliation:
Instituto Pirenaico de Ecolog"a (IPE)-CSIC, Avda. Monta"ana 1005, 50059 Zaragoza, Spain
Ana Mendez-Vicente
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Oviedo, Oviedo 33005, Spain
Saul Gonzalez-Lemos
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Oviedo, Oviedo 33005, Spain
Montserrat Jimenez-Sanchez
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Oviedo, Oviedo 33005, Spain
Maria Jose Dominguez-Cuesta
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Oviedo, Oviedo 33005, Spain
R. Lawrence Edwards
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
Hai Cheng
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xian Jiaotong University, Xian 710049, China
Xianfeng Wang
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
*
*Corresponding author.Present address: Division of Earth Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore. E-mail address:hstoll@geol.uniovi.es (H.M. Stoll).
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Abstract

Speleothem growth requires humid climates sufficiently warm to stimulate soil CO2 production by plants. We compile 283 U/Th dates on 21 stalagmites from six cave systems in the NW coast of Spain to evaluate if there are patterns in stalagmite growth that are evidence of climatic forcing. In the oldest stalagmites, from marine oxygen isotope stage (MIS) 7–5, growth persists through the glacial period. Hiatuses and major reductions in growth rate occur during extreme minima in summer insolation. Stalagmites active during the last interglaciation cease growth at the MIS 5–4 boundary (74 ka), when regional sea-surface temperature cooled significantly. During MIS 3, only two stalagmites grew; rates were highest between 50 and 60 ka during the maximum in summer insolation. One stalagmite grew briefly at 41 ka, 36.5 and 28.6 ka, all during warm phases of the Dansgaard–Oeschger cycles. A pronounced Holocene optimum in stalagmite growth occurs from 9 to 6 ka. The cessation of most growth by 4.1 ka, coincident with broad increases in aridity over the Mediterranean and areas influenced by the North African Monsoon, suggest that regions such as NW Spain, with dominant Atlantic moisture sources, also experienced increased aridity at this time.

Keywords

SpeleothemStalagmiteHoloceneU/Th datesPaleoclimate
Type
Short Communication
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 80 , Issue 2 , September 2013 , pp. 284 - 290
Copyright
University of Washington

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Footnotes

1 Present address: Division of Earth Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore.

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