Pleistocene paleoclimate evidences from speleothem record of a karstic cave located at the desert boundary - Maale-Efraim, Eastern Shomron, Israel.
by
A. Ayalon
Geological Survey of Israel
Coauthors: A. Vaks (Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University, 91904 Jerusalem), A. Ayalon (Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Yisrael Street, 95501 Jerusalem), M. Gilmour (Department of Earth Sciences, the Open University, Milton Keynes, MK8 6AA, UK)A. , Frumkin (Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University, 91904 Jerusalem), A. Kaufman (Department of Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot), A. Matthews (Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University, 91904 Jerusalem), M. Bar-Matthews (Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Yisrael Street, 95501 Jerusalem)

Carbonate cave deposits (speleothems) provide an important proxy for paleoclimate information. The caves located near the desert boundary are of special interest, because the availability of water in the unsaturated zone largely depends on small changes in climate conditions. Thus, dating periods of speleothem deposition allows us to determine the changes in the location of the desert boundary. The present research deals with speleothem deposition in Maale-Efraim (ME) Cave, located in the Eastern Shomron region, in the "rain shadow" of the Shomron Hills. The area receives 250 mm annual rainfall and the mean temperature is 21°C. Today the cave is dry, but the large number of speleothems inside the cave indicates that intensive deposition occurred in the past.

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Date received: March 29, 2001

Copyright © 2001 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # cagc-54.