Abstract
AbstractThis case study from the renowned Demänová Cave System in the Carpathians of Slovakia demonstrates that the conventional methods of fluvial sedimentology, combined with an allostratigraphic mapping and speleothem U‐series isotopic dating, can give unprecedented insights into the hydrological history of underground karst conduit. The deposits studied are a relic compound sidebar ranging from gravel to mud and encapsulating the conduit’s hydrological history from the middle Pleistocene to the present time. A succession of 10 allostratigraphic units, time‐constrained by speleothems, are recognized in the sidebar deposits, and the corresponding morphodynamics of an evolving cave‐floor sedimentation are reconstructed in considerable detail. The subterranean river water stages recognized from the deposits, time‐constrained by flowstone layers and stalagmites, correlate with and add to the regional record of climate changes. Two distinct episodes of flow ponding (high‐stage slackwater conditions) are recognized and attributed to the independently documented downstream cave‐roof collapses, probably triggered by the Carpathian post‐orogenic earthquakes. This multidisciplinary study may serve as a useful methodological guide for the analysis of fluviokarstic deposits in speleological research and reconstruction of their hosting cave hydrological history.
Highlights
Little sedimentological research has focused on cave clastic deposits to reconstruct the hydrological history of karst cave conduits, where the subterranean rivers are constrained by bedrock morphology and are no longer free to operate in their ‘normal’ manner known from the land-surface alluvial plains
The present study focuses on the allostratigraphy and sedimentological characteristics of these cave-side deposits, and on their hydrological and regional climatic implications
The intersection point of the underground and the subaerial river profiles is in the downstream Velky Dom chamber (Fig. 2), where the steadystate earlier incision of the underground river was perturbed by a roof-collapse rubble barrage (Fig. 9A)
Summary
Karst cave sediments have long attracted research as the underground depositories of plant and animal remains and as the archives of early human activity (e.g. Molodkov, 2001; Goldberg & Sherwood, 2006; Harmon & Wicks, 2006; Barton & Northup, 2007; Bird et al, 2007; Shang et al, 2007; Backwell et al, 2008; Jass & George, 2010; Oliveira et al, 2011; Pickering et al, 2011; Wu et al, 2012; Martini et al, 2018). Little sedimentological research has focused on cave clastic deposits to reconstruct the hydrological history of karst cave conduits, where the subterranean rivers are constrained by bedrock morphology and are no longer free to operate in their ‘normal’ manner known from the land-surface alluvial plains. Instead, their behaviour in cave conduits resembles that of rivers in bedrock mountain ravines (Tinkler & Wohl, 1998; Herman et al, 2012). These conditions mean that the river entire hydrological history is confined to and potentially recorded in a single narrow subterranean conduit
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