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Cayman Brac is a good example of a small oceanic carbonate island which has undergone several periods of submergence and emergence since the Tertiary, resulting in the geological formations being well karstified. This study investigated several karst phenomena on the island including the occurrence and morphology of caves, the water chemistry and microclimate inside the caves, periods of speleothem growth and dissolution, and bell holes. Caves occur throughout the island at various elevations above sea level. Using elevation as a criterion, the caves were divided into Notch caves, located at, or one-two metres above, the Sangamon Notch, and Upper caves, located at varying elevations above the Notch. Analysis of the morphology, age and the relative abundance of speleothem in the caves further supports this division. The close proximity of the Notch and the Notch caves is coincidental: speleothem dating by U-series methods shows that the caves predate the Notch. They are believed to have formed between 1400 and 400 ka, whereas a late Tertiary to Early Quaternary age is assigned to the Upper caves. Speleothem on the island has suffered minor, moderate and major dissolution. Minor dissolution is due to a change in the degree of saturation of the drip water feeding the speleothem, whereas the last two are caused by flooding or condensation corrosion. Many of the speleothems in fact experienced several episodes of dissolution followed by regrowth. The latest episode appears to be caused by condensation corrosion rather than flooding. Eleven speleothems containing growth hiatuses were dated by U-series methods. The results indicate that growth cessation did not occur synchronously. Furthermore, the timing of the hiatuses during the Quaternary is not restricted to glacial or interglacial periods. Oxygen and carbon stable isotope analyses of seven of the samples reveal an apparent shift towards a drier and warmer climate around 120 ka. However, more data and further collaborative evidence is desirable. Of six samples with hiatuses, five show a bi-modal distribution of stable isotope values: before and after the hiatus. Oxygen isotope analyses of modern drip water found inter-sample variations of over 2[per thousand]. This is due to cave environmental factors such as evaporation, infiltration velocity and roof thickness. Inside the caves δ 18 O of drip water decreases with increasing distance from the entrance and thus decreasing external climatic influence. This distance-climatic effect is also reflected in the δ18 O calculated for modern calcite: -5.3, -6.5 and -7.6[per thousand] VPDB at 3, 10 and 20 m respectively. The morphology of bell holes, found only in certain Notch caves, was studied in detail. It is proposed that the bell holes are formed by condensation corrosion, probably enhanced by microbiological activity. The study represents a comprehensive and thorough analyses of karst features on a small oceanic island, and provides information useful for climatic reconstruction during the Quaternary
Karst development on carbonate platforms occurs continuously on emergent portions of the platform. Surficial karst processes produce an irregular pitted and etched surface, or epikarst. The karst surface becomes mantled with soil, which may eventually result in the production of a resistant micritic paleosol. The epikarst transmits surface water into vadose pit caves, which in turn deliver their water to a diffuse-flow aquifer. These pit caves form within a 100,000 yr time frame. On islands with a relatively thin carbonate cover over insoluble rock, vadose flow perched at the contact of carbonate rock with insoluble rock results in the lateral growth of vadose voids along the contact, creating large collapse chambers that may later stope to the surface.
Carbonate islands record successive sequences of paleosols (platform emergence) and carbonate sedimentation (platform submergence). The appropriate interpretation of paleosols as past exposure surfaces is difficult, because carbonate deposition is not distributed uniformly, paleosol material is commonly transported into vadose and phreatic voids at depth, and micritized horizons similar in appearance to paleosols can develop within existing carbonates.
On carbonate islands, large dissolution voids called flank margin caves form preferentially in the discharging margin of the freshwater lens from the effects that result from fresh-water/salt-water mixing. Similarly, smaller dissolution voids also develop at the top of the lens where vadose and phreatic fresh-waters mix. Independent of fluid mixing, oxidation of organic carbon and oxidation/reduction reactions involving sulfur can produce acids that play an important role in phreatic dissolution. This enhanced dissolution can produce caves in fresh-water lenses of very small size in less than 15,000 yr. Because dissolution voids develop at discrete horizons, they provide evidence of past sea-level positions. The glacio-eustatic sea-level changes of the Quaternary have overprinted the dissolutional record of many carbonate islands with multiple episodes of vadose, fresh-water phreatic, mixing zone, and marine phreatic conditions. This record is further complicated by collapse of caves, which produces upwardly prograding voids whose current position does not correlate with past sea level positions.
The location and type of porosity development on emergent carbonate platforms depends on the degree of platform exposure, climate, carbonate lithology, and rate of sea-level change. Slow, steady, partial transgression or regression will result in migration of the site of phreatic void production as the fresh-water lens changes elevation and moves laterally in response to sea-level change. The result can be a continuum of voids that may later lead to development solution-collapse breccias over an extended area.
Among the 16 speleothems that were collected from 7 submarine caves and pits for the purpose of 14C and U-Th dating and reconstructing sea-level changes, two speleothems were dated by both methods. Different environmental conditions during the speleothem deposition and after the submergence resulted with different appropriateness for speleothem dating by these techniques. Well preserved speleothems gave reliable results by both methods, while U-Th method showed disadvantage in the case of carbonates contaminated with detrital material, as well as in the case of carbonate from marine overgrowth that covers the speleothems. However, U-Th method using MC ICPMS technique which requires only 100-300 mg of sample per analysis (instead of ca. 30 g for 14C conventional method), offers better age resolution that is essential for speleothem dating.
We have established a plausible rate of uplift near Siracusa in southeastern Sicily (Italy) over the last glacial–interglacial cycle using U-series ages of submerged speleothem calcite and 14C ages of calcite serpulid layers that encrust the speleothems during cave submergence. The precisely determined ages of these sea level benchmarks were compared with expected relative sea level position based on glacio-hydro-isostatic modeling to assess the rate of uplift in this region. When combined with the age of various late Holocene archaeological sites that have been recently described and characterized in terms of their functional position relative to sea level these data collectively define a rate of uplift ≤0.4 mm a−1 along this portion of the Sicilian coastline. These results are consistent with an age assignment of marine isotope stage (MIS) 5.3 or 5.5 for the Akradina terrace, which in turn places temporal constraints on paleoshorelines above and below this level.