Abstract
Winter Wonderland Cave contains perennial ice associated with two types of cryogenic cave carbonate (CCC) formed during the freezing of water. CCCfine is characterized by relatively high δ13C values, whereas CCCcoarse exhibits notably low δ18O values indicating precipitation under (semi)closed-system conditions in a pool of residual water beneath an ice lid. Previous work has concluded that CCCcoarse forms during permafrost thaw, making the presence of this precipitate a valuable indicator of past cryospheric change. Available geochronologic evidence indicates that CCC formation in this cave is a Late Holocene or contemporary process, and field observations suggest that the cave thermal regime recently changed in a manner that permits the ingress of liquid water. This is the first documented occurence of CCCcoarse in the Western Hemisphere and one of only a few locations where these minerals have been found in association with ice. Winter Wonderland Cave is a natural laboratory for studying CCC genesis.
Highlights
The cryosphere is responding rapidly to climate warming, and paleoclimate records are critical for understanding the novelty of these r esponses[1,2]
Our work provides an important point of comparison for cryogenic cave carbonate (CCC) from well-studied caves in Europe, and documents a setting in which theories for CCC genesis could be evaluated
CCCfine is produced through open system freezing as a thin film of water flows over the ice surface
Summary
The cryosphere is responding rapidly to climate warming, and paleoclimate records are critical for understanding the novelty of these r esponses[1,2]. Values of δ13C and δ18O indicate that both types of CCC are present in WWC (Fig. 3a), despite no consistent distinction in their grain size distributions.
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