Abstract
The timing of growth phases in a cave flowstone from Yorkshire, England, has been precisely dated by thermal ionization mass spectrometric 238U–234U–230Th dating. Six growth periods of both short duration and fast growth rate are separated by nondepositional hiatuses. The ages of these phases were determined to be 128.8 ± 2.7, 103.1 ± 1.8, 84.7 ± 1.2, 57.9 ± 1.5, 49.6 ± 1.3, and 36.9 ± 0.8 ka. There is a remarkably good correlation between the periods of active speleothem growth and the timing of solar insolation maxima, derived from orbital parameters, which has not previously been reported. Speleothem growth theory and evidence from other terrestrial paleoclimate records suggest that episodic, rapid growth phases at the insolation maxima are most likely to be caused by changes in either precipitation intensity or volume, which caused switching in the routing of water flow in the unsaturated zone above the cave. Such a result provides new evidence of the importance of variations in solar insolation for terrestrial paleoclimate and offers the potential for derivation of a paleowetness index from speleothem growth.
