Journal article
Assessing the paleoenvironmental potential of Pliocene to Holocene tufa deposits along the Ghaap Plateau escarpment (South Africa) using stable isotopes
TL Doran, AIR Herries, PJ Hopley, H Sombroek, J Hellstrom, E Hodge, BF Kuhn
Quaternary Research United States | Published : 2015
Abstract
The tufa deposits of the Ghaap Plateau escarpment provide a rich, yet minimally explored, geological archive of climate and environmental history coincident with hominin evolution in South Africa. This study examines the sedimentary and geochemical records of ancient and modern tufas from Buxton-Norlim Limeworks, Groot Kloof, and Gorrokop, to assess the potential of these sediments for providing reliable chronologies of high-resolution, paleoenvironmental information. Chronometric dating demonstrates that tufa formation has occurred from at least the terminal Pliocene through to the modern day. The stable isotope records show a trend toward higher, more variable δ18O and δ13C values with dec..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
This work was supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship grant (FT120100399) and Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE) awards (07/068, 08/031, 08/032) to AIRH. Fieldwork and stable isotope analysis was supported by National Geographic Grants (#8774-10 and #3212) awarded to PJH. We would like to thank Curtis Marean, an anonymous reviewer, and Julian Andrews, who was especially helpful with his time and expertise, for their constructive comments and suggestions on this paper.