A Tunnel Speleothem Based Stable-Isotope Record of Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation
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A tunnel speleothem based stable-isotope record of Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation forcing of precipitation in the Midlands, United Kingdom A Thesis SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Carolyn A. Shull IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF WATER RESOURCES SCIENCE MASTER OF SCIENCE Dr. Howard Mooers, PhD August 2019 Carolyn A. Shull ©2019 i Acknowledgments Dr. Howard Mooers, Adviser Committee members Dr. John Pastor and Dr. Byron Steinman. Mia O’Brien and Lydia at UMD Writer’s Workshop for countless hours of proof reading and corrections. Dr. Laure Charleux for her GIS and Python tutelage. Dr. Salli Dymond and Dr. John Swenson for their introduction to isotopes. Dr. Latisha Brengman for assistance on the proposal and the use of microscopes. Dr. Ted Ozersky for assistance with coding in R. Dr. Phillip Larson for setting up Strater and chiming in. Dr. Tsutomu Shimotori at the UMD Research Instrument Laboratory. Aaron Lingwall, Robert Brown and Julia Halbur at Large Lakes Observatory for running analyses. Fellow grad students for reviewing writing and many discussions. Isocamp at the University of Utah. The Woodland Trust for their Nature’s Calendar data. Anthony Sames and Liz Ross for the collection and recording of all water samples. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Carolyn Shull, Contact: [email protected] ii Abstract Cave speleothems are an established source of preserved data used in paleo- environmental reconstruction, as climate and land use information can be recorded in the carbon and oxygen isotopes. Speleothems in the tunnels of the canals in West Midlands, UK were investigated as another potential record as they appear to experience a rapid growth rate, a requirement to detect short-term climate events and low-amplitude climate signals. Formation in artificial structures restrict the potential record to the past 150 years, while other speleothem-based proxies span millennial time scales. Upon analysis, speleothem oxygen isotopes reflect the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (AMO), and carbon and oxygen isotopes are correlated to land use changes. The results indicate speleothems from canal tunnels in central England potentially provide a record of land use changes and precipitation source water related to the AMO. Tunnel speleothem isotope data have the potential to serve as valuable datasets in climate teleconnection and modeling studies. iii Table of Contents List of Tables ............................................................................................................................................. v List of Figures .......................................................................................................................................... vi Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 1 Background ............................................................................................................................................... 3 Speleothems .................................................................................................................... 3 Stable Isotopes in Speleothems ....................................................................................... 5 Stable Isotopes of Water: The Evolution of Oxygen and Hydrogen Isotopes from Source Water to Precipitation ....................................................................................... 12 Climate in the United Kingdom .................................................................................... 14 Temperature and Precipitation ...................................................................................... 18 Dating Speleothems ...................................................................................................... 19 Study Area .............................................................................................................................................. 21 The Birmingham Canal Navigations ............................................................................ 21 Tunnels .......................................................................................................................... 22 Geology and Speleothem Formation ............................................................................ 25 Methods ................................................................................................................................................... 27 Event Log and Mapping................................................................................................ 27 Speleothem Collection Sites ......................................................................................... 28 Speleothem Sample Collection ..................................................................................... 29 Local Water Testing and Collection ............................................................................. 29 Speleothem Analysis ..................................................................................................... 30 Instrument Station Data ................................................................................................ 32 Climate Indices ............................................................................................................. 32 Air Quality .................................................................................................................... 33 Land Use ....................................................................................................................... 33 Dating - An Age Model ................................................................................................ 33 Local Hydrology ........................................................................................................... 36 Geology ......................................................................................................................... 36 Results ...................................................................................................................................................... 36 Speleothem Mapping .................................................................................................... 36 Tunnel Drip Water Chemistry ...................................................................................... 42 iv X-Ray Fluorescence ...................................................................................................... 43 Confocal Microscopy .................................................................................................... 45 Petrographic Microscopy and Trace Element Analyses ............................................... 47 Age Model .................................................................................................................... 47 Local Hydrology ........................................................................................................... 47 Instrument Station Temperature ................................................................................... 56 Carbon and Oxygen Isotopes ........................................................................................ 59 Land Use ....................................................................................................................... 62 Correlation Analyses ..................................................................................................... 63 Discussion ............................................................................................................................................... 67 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................ 72 References .............................................................................................................................................. 74 Appendix ................................................................................................................................................. 89 v List of Tables Table 1. Peak Counts at three R-Spec Spline Levels ........................................................ 45 Table 2. Linear Regression Output for AMO and δ18O .................................................... 66 Table 3. ANOVA: Single Factor δ18O and Land Use ....................................................... 67 Table 4. ANOVA: Single Factor δ13C and Land Use ....................................................... 67 vi List of Figures Figure 1. Tunnel Schematic ................................................................................................ 5 Figure 2. Carbon Isotope Ranges ........................................................................................ 9 Figure 3. Non-equilibrium evaporation at the water-air interface. ................................... 13 Figure 4. Isotopic evolution of Rayleigh distillation during rainout in a closed system .. 14 Figure 5. Air Masses ......................................................................................................... 15 Figure 6. The Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation ............................................................ 17 Figure 7. Location of stations for CET and Historic Station Data.................................... 19 Figure 8. Tunnel Geology ................................................................................................