Stable Isotope N-S Transect of Holocene and Late Glacial stalagmites (Belgium, France, Morocco)
by
Dominique Genty
LSCE, CNRS, UMR CEA/CNRS 1572,
Coauthors: Marc Massault, Dominique Blamart, Rabia Ouahdi, Valérie Plagnes, Christiane Causse, Sophie Verheyden, Eddy Kepens, Edwige Pons-Branchu, Bruno Hamelin, Sandra Van-Exter

The comparison of stable isotope profiles (delta¹³C and delta¹⁸O) of 15 modern, Holocene and Late Glacial stalagmites from Belgium (Han-sur-Lesse, Père Noël), France (Villars, Chauvet, Salamandre) and Morocco (Chara) caves show the following features : 1) there is a good agreement between the different delta¹⁸O records between 15ka and 4.5 ka : millennia scale variations are parallel even for distant sites (i.e.Chauvet and Père Noël stalagmites). For the last 4.5ka, differences up to 2‰ occur between the samples; 2) contemporaneous delta¹³C series show much more inter-samples variations (up to 4‰) than delta¹⁸O but show a globally decreasing trend from -7‰ at 14-15ka to -9/-11‰ today. The composite delta¹⁸O record of the last 15ka shows an increasing trend from-6.0‰ to -4.0‰ and displays well known climatic events such as the Youger Dryas and the 8.2ka one. Other short events are also seen in the different samples which are likely to be of climatic origin. delta¹⁸O inter-sample differences are explained in term of more or less good isotopic equilibrium, variation in the vapour sources and in the rainout effect, altitude of the site. The delta¹³C variations are explained by changes in the vegetation type and density and by the limestone dissolution processes.

Date received: March 30, 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-77.