Environmental magnetism of late Holocene stalagmites from semi-arid karst in southern Australia

Abstract

Whilst significant progress in speleothem environmental magnetism has been made in recent years, our knowledge of how magnetic proxies respond to Earth-system processes in arid/semi-arid environments is limited. In this study, we investigate calcite stalagmites that form under evaporative conditions near cave entrances in areas that receive low precipitation (∼250 mm/year). Such stalagmites have yet to be explored in environmental magnetism, and are typically avoided in paleoclimatology due to complications in their geochemistry. Proxies based on detrital inclusions, such as speleothem palynology, have, however, proven favorable in these conditions. Here we report the first combination of sp..