Calcium isotopes in speleothems allow for the quantitative reconstruction of rainfall in terrestrial systems.
I have been generating records of calcium isotopes in a well dated Indian speleothem as well as a speleothem from California. The variations in calcium isotopes provide an indication of prior calcium precipitation, with fractionation dependent on the quantity of water reaching the cave.
This research is being undertaken in collaboration with Sasha Turchyn, University of Cambridge, Jessica Oster, Vanderbilt University, and Sebastian Breitenbach, University of Bochum, Germany.
Manuscripts:
Magiera, M., Lechleitner, F.A., Erhardt, A.M., Hartland, A., Kwiecien, O., Cheng, H., Bradbury, H., Turchyn, A.V., Riechelmann, S., Edwards, L., Immenhauser A., F.M. Breitenbach, S.F.M. (2019) Local and regional Indian Summer Monsoon precipitation dynamics during Termination II and the Last Interglacial, Geophysical Research Letters. doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083721
de Wet, C.B., Erhardt, A.M., Sharp, W.D., Marks, N.E., Bradbury, H.J., Alexandra V. Turchyn, A.V., Xu, Y., Oster, J.L., (2021) Semi-Quantitative Estimates of Rainfall Variability during the 8.2kyr Event in California using Speleothem Calcium Isotope Ratios. Geophysical Research Letters. e2020GL089154 DOI: 0.1029/2020GL089154
Figure 2 from Magiera et al. (2019). Local and regional Indian Summer Monsoon precipitation dynamics during Termination II and the Last Interglacial, Geophysical Research Letters
Figure 1 from deWet et al. (2021) Semi-Quantitative Estimates of Rainfall Variability during the 8.2kyr Event in California using Speleothem Calcium Isotope Ratios. Geophysical Research Letters