The expertise of a Huddersfield researcher has been sought out to assist an international research project which aims to unlock keys to climate change hidden in cave formations known as speleothems located deep in New Zealand’s caves.
The expertise of a Huddersfield researcher has been sought out to assist an international research project which aims to unlock keys to climate change hidden in cave formations known as speleothems located deep in New Zealand’s caves.
Dr Bethany Fox from the University’s Department of Biological and Geographical Sciences is taking part in a $1 million NZD SMART ideas research project funded by the New Zealand government, led by the University of Waikato, entitled ‘Quantifying past rainfall and climate extremes in New Zealand’.
Speleothems are produced from water outside of the cave dripping slowly through the cave roof over thousands of years. Gradually this deposition of minerals creates cave formations from the ground up, which are known as stalagmites, or from the roof down known as stalactites.
“Because the water has come in from outside of the cave, this means it has a connection to the climate,” explained Dr Fox. “When there is more or less rainfall you can see changes in the chemistry of the stalagmite or the stalactite layer and this can reveal what was happening in the past with the climate of that area.”
Read more at: University of Huddersfield
Dr Bethany Fox conducting research with Matthias Magiera in a cave in New Zealand. (Photo Credit: Dr Sebastian Breitenbach)
