Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Mylroie, John E.

Committee Member

Kirkland, Brenda L.

Committee Member

Gabitov, Rinat I.

Date of Degree

5-17-2014

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Geology

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Geosciences

Abstract

Three questions were asked during this research. 1) Does the Sr content of Caribbean speleothems have a direct relationship with the age of the host rock at the time of speleothem precipitation?; 2) do older speleothems contain less Sr than younger speleothems in the same climatic setting?; and 3) will speleothems record the change in Sr concentration of eogenetic carbonates as a faster depletion in climates of higher precipitation as opposed to drier climates? The speleothems and cave rocks in this study were analyzed with various methods in an attempt to understand the rock processes that affect speleothem Sr concentrations. Evidence to support the hypothesis that younger host rock contributes higher concentrations of Sr to speleothems was found in the stalagmites of Curacao while Bahamian stalagmites indicated climatic variations. The results have implications for using stalagmites from relatively young, eogenetic limestone as a proxy for Sr-related paleoclimate data.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/20757

Comments

Speleothem||Strontium||Eogenetic Carbonate||Caves||Karst

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