The First Dating of Cave Ice from the Tatra Mountains, Poland and its Implication to Palaeoclimate Reconstructions

Abstract

Lodowa Cave in Ciemniak, which belongs to the dynamic ice cave type, contains the biggest perennial block of cave-ice in the Tatra Mountains. The ice represents congelation type, since it originates from freezing of water which infiltrates the cave. Two generations of ice have been recognized in this cave. They are divided by the distinct unconformity. The ice building both generations is layered. Two moths which were found in the younger generations were sampled and dated by 14 C method yielding 195 ± 30 and 125 ± 30 years. Bearing in mind the position in the section and the fact that the cave ice has waned since the 20s of the last century, the age is 1720-1820 AD and 1660-1790 AD respectively. It proves that the ice was formed during the Little Ice Age. Hence, the erosion boundary which underlies this generation records the degradation of ice before the Little Ice Age most probably during the Medieval Warm Period. The ice volume in the cave was substantially smaller before the Little Ice Age than it is today, despite the clear tendency to melting, which has been recognized since 20s of the last century. The older generation of ice is supposed to have its origins in a cold stage between the Atlantic period and the Medieval Warm Period.

Radiocarbon-Dated Vegetal Remains from the Cave Ice Deposits of Velebit Mountain, Croatia

“…Vegetal macroremains have been analyzed frequently (e.g. Fórizs et al 2004; Sancho et al 2012; Spötl et al 2014; Perşoiu et al 2017; Munroe et al 2018), and occasionally animal remains (Yonge and MacDonald 1999; Citterio et al 2005; Hercman et al 2010; Gradziński et al 2016) have also been dated with the aim of placing constraints on the age of cave ice deposits.…”

“…Isolated individual objects found in otherwise organic-free ice layers might indicate rapid embedding in firn and ice representing positive cave ice balance (e.g. Hercman et al 2010; Spötl et al 2014; Gradziński et al 2016). Organic inclusions concentrated along discrete layers are frequently observed in cave ice deposits.…”

Cave ice – the imminent loss of untapped mid-latitude cryospheric palaeoenvironmental archives

“…Based on the slowly increasing number of numerical age estimates ranging from centennial (Luetscher et al, 2007, Kern et al, 2009, Lauritzen et al, 2010, Hercman et al, 2010 to millennial (Citterio et al, 2005, Belmonte Ribas et al, 2012 timescales although regularly some degree of hiata are undeniably interspersed in their stratigraphic record.…”

Quaternary faulting in the Tatra Mountains, evidence from cave morphology and fault-slip analysis

“…In the eastern Lefeld (1957) distinguishes three subunits: the main fold of the Giewont Nappe, the Zawrat Kasprowy subunit and the uppermost -Kopa Magury subunit. These subunits are recumbent synclines in general (Lefeld 1957;Hercman 1989). The Fatric Unit consists of an Lower Triassic-Lower Cretaceous succession (Nemčok et al 1994) and is overthrust (Krížna Nappe) onto the Tatric Unit (Plašienka 2003).…”