Palaeoclimate

A variety of climate proxies can be found in speleothems. C and O stable isotope ratios respond to variations in precipitation and temperature while more advanced methodologies (e.g. isotope clumping and fluid inclusion isotopes) now offer the prospect of direct determination of absolute temperatures from the Geological past. More...

Geochronology

U-Th (and more recently U-Pb) dating of speleothems provides not only a temporal framework for proxy studies but also allows direct dating of any objects or events associated with speleothem growth. Large collations of speleothem ages form a novel proxy for effective precipitation. More...

Landscape evolution

 Dating of broken speleothems provides temporal constraints on ancient fault movements (‘speleoseismology’) while speleothems themselves provide evidence of the timescales of karst formation. More...

 

Human origins

Floral and faunal evolution

Other applications