Open AccessStable isotope behavior during cave ice formation by water freezing in Scărişoara Ice Cave, Romania
Author(s) -
Perşoiu Aurel,
Onac Bogdan P.,
Wynn Jonathan G.,
Bojar AnaVoica,
Holmgren Karin
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.67
H-Index - 298
eISSN - 2156-2202
pISSN - 0148-0227
DOI - 10.1029/2010jd014477
Subject(s) - cave , geology , paleoclimatology , ice core , δ18o , isotopes of oxygen , stable isotope ratio , precipitation , climate change , climatology , oceanography , geochemistry , ecology , meteorology , geography , quantum mechanics , biology , physics
Recently, a series of studies have targeted the stable isotopic composition of cave ice as a possible source of paleoclimatic information, but none presented an explanation for the way in which the external climatic signal is transferred to cave ice. While the relation between the stable isotopic composition of precipitation and drip water can be relatively easily determined, a more complex problem arises, i.e., the possible alteration of the primary climatic signal recorded by the oxygen and hydrogen stable isotopes during the freezing of water to form cave ice. Here we report the results of the first detailed investigations of the oxygen and hydrogen stable isotope behavior during the formation of ice in Scărişoara Ice Cave. Samples of ice align on a straight line with a slope lower than 8 in a δ 18 O‐ δ 2 H plot, characteristic for ice formed by the freezing of water. A model is presented for the reconstruction of the initial isotopic composition of water, despite the complexity induced by kinetic effects during early stages of freezing. These results are consistent with ice that forms by the downward freezing of a stagnant pool of water, under kinetic conditions in the initial stages of the process, and isotopic equilibrium thereafter. As ice caves are described in many parts of the world, otherwise poorly represented in ice‐based paleoclimatology, the results of this study could open a new direction in paleoclimatic research so that an array of significant paleoclimate data can be developed on the basis of their study.