Abstract
Caves containing perennial ice deposits make up a little-known, but emerging part of the cryosphere under increasing scrutiny from the scientific community. M-17, a sag-type ice cave opening at 1879 m asl in the Tolminski Migovec massif of the Julian Alps (NW Slovenia) contains a perennial underground ice deposit whose paleoclimate sensitivity is poorly understood and whose longevity under current climate change is at risk. The past mass balance of this cave is constrained using wood macro-remains embedded in ice. Accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating of 18 wood samples embedded in ice provides the largest currently available dataset for a subterranean ice deposit in the southern European Alps. The reconstructed chronostratigraphy reveals three main phases of likely positive ice balance around 900-1100 AD, 1200-1300 AD, and 1700-1800 AD, as well as a period of negative mass balance around 1300-1400 AD. The onset of cave glaciation is deemed to have occurred no later than about 900 AD, with evidence of overall positive ice mass balance during multi-decadal periods characterized by cooler-than-average summers and wetter-than-average springs. Conversely, negative mass balance is recorded during a period warmer-than-average summers and dry springs. The cave has experienced ice mass loss since its discovery in the 1980s.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Radiocarbon |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 27 Apr 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We would like to thank the efforts of the JSPDT and ICCC caving clubs for documenting the sites of Tolminski Migovec and making the original cave surveys and photographs available. We are indebted to G. Koltai, C. Honiat, S. Steidle, and C. Snowling for invaluable logistical support during the fieldwork, especially during surveying. We are also grateful to the Department for Forestry and Renewable Forest Resources BF UL – Unit for Landscape Forestry and Forest Spatial Informatics (Chair for Renewable Forest Resources) for lending 4 T/RH HOBO MX2301 Loggers. This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (grant P318740 to CS). We are grateful for the valuable input of anonymous reviewers, which helped enhance the quality of this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press for the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona.
Keywords
- Alpine region
- cave ice
- Holocene
- radiocarbon AMS dating
- stable isotopes
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Archaeology
- General Earth and Planetary Sciences
Access to Document
- RADIOCARBON CONSTRAINTS ON PERIODS OF POSITIVE CAVE ICE MASS BALANCE DURING THE LAST MILLENNIUM, JULIAN ALPS (NW SLOVENIA)
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press for the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited.