Isotope analysis of Pleistocene tufa deposits

at Roški Slap in Krka National Park, Croatia

1 2 3 4 5 5
D. Domínguez-Villar , K.Krklec , S. Kele , N.Cukrov , H.Cheng & R.L. Edwards
1. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edbagston B15 2TT Birmingham, UK
2. Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb, Svetošimunska 25, Zagreb, Croatia
UNIVERSITY
OF MINNESOTA 3. Institute for Geological and Geochemical Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 45 Bedaörsti, Budapest, Hungary
4. Division for marine and environmental Research, Ruđer Bošković Institute, Bijenička cesta 54, Zagreb, Croatia
5. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota 310 Pillsbury Drive SE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
INTRODUCTION
(1)
Tufa carbonates can be dated by the U-Th method , although the precision of corrected dates often exceeds 10,000 years. To improve the U-Th
chronology, we produced time series of d O values along ancient tufa records and compare them to better dated records by wiggle matching. This
18

technique enable us to evaluate the causes of the catastrophic erosion of an ancient tufa barrier that caused the drainage of a lake in Krka River.

ANCIENT TUFA AT ROŠKI SLAP river After the river dissected the full elevation of the
flow ancient barrier, a rockfall took place. One of the
Roški Slap is a site along Krka River, blocks, >10 m in heigth and composed of ancient tufa,
famous for its active tufa cascades. In Roški
Slap was too large to be removed by the river and caused a
the walls of the canyon there are also 100 km
small cave with the canyon wall. A 0.5 m thick crust of
outcroops of ancient tufa deposits. The mammillary tufa precipitated in the walls of the cave.
main ancient tufa deposit was a 300 m This tufa forms in submerged environments with a
long ramp that formed a barrier across Park
Krka National
(2)
Study limited flow rate such as lakes or ponds . The
the canyon with a height of 26.5 m. A
site mammillary tufa covers both walls of the small cave,
narrow lake, 10 km in lenght, was
implying that it was formed after the rockfall. Water
formed upstream this barrier. Erosion
Kr
level at this stage reached a height of at least 8 m.
eventually destroyed this tufa barrier
ka

and drained the lake. The river Ancient

Riv

100 m
dissected the full section of the barrier. tufa barrier
er

U-Th DATING & STABLE ISOTOPE SAMPLING

A total of 12 U-Th dates were obtained from different alliquots of two samples, one from the Krka
river

Canyon wall
ancient tufa barrier and the other from the mammillary tufa. Consistent results of different
(3)
alliquots support that both tufas were formed around the last interglacial. Isochron technique Mammillary
was applied to correct the detrital Thorium and to obtain more accurate ages. Dates of the ancient tufa
barrier and the mammillary tufa are 123.0 ±12 ka BP and 114.2 ±7.8 ka BP respectively.
.

Tufa d O records were obtained along the 26.5 m of the barrier and the 0.5 m thick mammillary
18

Rock
tufa. The barrier was sampled every 0.5 m to minimize irregularities in the stratigraphy. Cave

fall
Mammillary tufa is a laminated sediment (~ 600 yrs) and samples were collected every 2 cm.
AGE MODEL
We assume that the d18O values respond to regional climate
and could be correlated with regional paleoclimate records.
We use the well dated speleothem record from Corchia
Cave(4,5) in central Italy to transfer the chronology from the
speleothem record to our tufa barrier record using 7 tie
points. The results provide reasonable growth rates ranging
from 0.3 and 1.4 mm/yr. We assume that the mammillary
0.95 tufa was formed during 600 yr after the former barrier was
eroded but within the uncertainity of its isochron age.
fa
tu

BP
ry

ka
illa

0.93
. 0
2
m

±1
am

0
BP

3 .
Th/238U

1 2
ka

0.91

r
.8
230

i e
±7

r r
Ba
4 .3
11

0.89

0.87
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10
232Th/238U

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The record of ancient tufa barrier at Roski Slap started during the deglaciation period MIS 6 and continued during the climate optimum of the MIS 5e
and beyond, having a continuos deposition for more than 30 ka. The collapse of the barrier ocurred during the stadial MIS-5d in a period of climate
amelioration. Tufa continued precipitation even during the very cold and dry event C24. Therefore, a climate change is unlikely to be the cause of
the tufa collapse. After the barrier collapsed, carbonates were still sedimented in sites where erosion was limited (mammillary tufa), although
further river erosion prevented tufa formation to last long and sedimentation ceased at some point during MIS 5d. Evidence suport that the barrier
collapsed as a result of erosion rates being larger than depositional rates. The barrier collapse was not the consequence of a climate change.
Possible causes for the barrier collapse could have been structural or environmental. Structure failure caused by hydrostatic pressure: as a result
of its large size or an earthquake. Evironmental: epic paleofloods can be very destructive but major fires or the decresse of vegetation cover may
trigger the erosion in the system for long periods. Future studies of this site will provide additional information to constrain the causes of erosion of
tufa barriers. This paleo-research is an analogue to evaluate the risk of erosion on current tufa barriers from Krka National Park and other locations.

References: (1) Edwards et al., 1987. 238 234 230 232

U- U- Th- Th systematics and the precise measurements of time over the past 500,000 Acknowledgements: This research was supported by
years. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 81, 175-192. (2) Pedley, 1990. Classification and environmental models of cool freshwater tufas. funds of the Krka National Park with the projects “Geokronologija
Sedimentary Geology 68, 143-154. (3) Ludwign & Titterington, 1994. Calculation of 230Th/U isochrons ages and errors. Geochimica et i evolucija pleistocenske sedre odabranih lokaliteta na području
Cosmochimica Acta 58, 5031-5042. (4) Drysdale et al., 2007. Stalagmite evidence for the precise timing of North Atlantic cold events during the Nacionalnog parka Krka” and “Isotope analyses of the remains
early last glacial. Geology 35, 77-80. (5) Drysdale et al., 2009. Evidence of obliquity forcing of glaial Termination II. Science, 325, 1527-1531.
of older tufa barriers at Roški Slap”.