NSF Award
0092459
CAREER: Using Caves in Tectonic and Climatic Geomorphology<br/>EAR-0092459<br/><br/>Darryl E. Granger<br/><br/>Caves form as water flows underground, dissolving tubes and canyons that mark the water-table elevation at the time of cave development. Relict cave passages and their sediments can thus be used to decipher the history of regional water-table lowering, which is often regulated by river incision or tectonic uplift. The protective environment in a cave can preserve fragile sediments and minerals for millions of years, during which time the surface may be sculpted by erosion and tectonic forces may uplift entire mountain ranges in which the caves lie. PI proposes to use caves and cave sediments in three distinct projects, each with important implications for regional climatic and tectonic geomorphology. Cosmogenic 26Al and 10Be will be used to date sediments in a suite of large caves along the Cumberland Escarpment of Tennessee and Kentucky, which appear to record a pulse of regional river incision related to glaciation in the Ohio River basin. PI will survey and date cave mineral deposits that mark ancient pools in the Sierra Nevada, California, to constrain tectonic tilting of this mountain range. Beach-deposited sediments preserved in caves that are now high in the mountains of New Zealand will be dated to determine uplift rates in this tectonically active region. In addition, PI will use this work to educate students and the public about caves and their unique hydrology through workshops, teacher training and educational literature provided to the National Park Service.
