Glacial origin for cave rhythmite during MIS 5d-c in a glaciokarst landscape, Picos de Europa (Spain)

Quaternary regional evolution based on karst cave geomorphology in Picos de Europa (Atlantic Margin of the Iberian Peninsula)

“…A C C E P T E D M A N U S C R I P T (Fig. 1), studies focused on geomorphology, drip water chemistry and speleothems of alpine caves were performed in the Western Pyrenees (Quinif and Maire, 1998) and its extension to the W: the Cantabrian Mountains (Aranburu et al, 2014;Gázquez et al, 2014;Ballesteros et al, 2015aBallesteros et al, , 2017.…”

“…This work aims to establish the Quaternary geomorphological evolution of Picos de Europa and the influence of the climate and surficial processes (glaciations and others) on its speleogenesis. With this purpose, we combined previous geomorphological and geochronological data of two alpine caves (Ballesteros et al, 2011b(Ballesteros et al, , 2015a(Ballesteros et al, , 2017 and geomorphological evidence collected in other two cavities, as well as 28 new numerical ages based on 234 U/ 230 Th series dating and one 26 Al/ 10 Be burial age. The length of studied caves reaches 12 km of conduits that represent 3% of the total conduits of Picos de Europa.…”

“…In few cases, these sediments cover fluvial and breakdown deposits. In the Torca La Texa cave, Ballesteros et al (2017) interpreted two of these deposits as rhythmites formed during floods caused by glacial melting in the MIS 5c-b; thus these sediments come from glacial erosion of the limestone.…”

“…Locally, glacial valleys include karst springs that were mostly blocked in the past by glaciers and till ( Fig. 10c), at least during the local maximum extension (Ballesteros et al, 2017).…”

Hidrogeología del Parque Nacional de los Picos de Europa, norte de España.

“…Por encima de los 600-1.000 m s.n.m., los Picos de Europa presentan numerosas formas glaciares desarrolladas en diferentes etapas del Pleistoceno Medio y Superior, incluyendo importantes acumulaciones de till, a las que se asocian lagos de montaña (Jiménez-Sánchez et al, 2013;Serrano et al, 2013;Ruiz-Fernández et al, 2016). Así, la recarga y el desarrollo del acuífero kárstico debió estar condicionado por la dinámica glaciar, la evolución de la karstificación, la erosión de los acuitardos y los fenómenos de obstrucción de las surgencias kársticas (Ballesteros et al, 2017).…”