Uranium-series Chronology and Environmental Applications of Speleothems

An increasing number of scientists recognize the value of speleothems¹ as often extremely well-preserved archives of information about past climate, vegetation, hydrology, sea level, nuclide migration, water-rock interaction, landscape evolution, tectonics and human action. Well-constrained data are required to document past changes, reconstruct past patterns and predict future responses of the Earth system at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Speleothems are particularly useful in this regard because they can be found in many locations of the globe, sampled at high-resolution and reliably dated using high-precision uranium-series techniques.