Publication details
Can dripwater hydrogeochemistry help us to discover hidden upper-lying cave floor?
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Hydrogeochemical parameters of cave dripwater contain information about the processes related to the water flow path. One of the processes that may occur is the prior calcite precipitation on hidden upper-lying cave levels. For prediction of such spaces, it was proposed a simplified criterion, UCL = 1/(ECnorm x deltaQn), where ECnorm is a dimensionless “normalised” water conductivity defined as EC/ECusual and deltaQ is a dimensionless drip rate variation defined as sigmaQ/Q. The symbol EC represents the mean conductivity of given drip [mS/m], ECusual is the mean conductivity of ordinary dripwaters in the cave [mS/m], sigmaQ is the standard deviation of given drip rate [drops/min], and Q is the mean drip rate of given drip [drops/min]. The empirical coefficient n is used to correct a “weight” of the deltaQ variable. The criterion was tested on a real data set collected in Punkva Caves (Moravian Karst, Czech Republic). The UCL values ranged from 1.06 to 1.42 in case of the “usual drips” without prior calcite precipitation and reached up to 2.74 in case of an “anomalous drip” that are demonstrably associated with a prior calcite precipitation at the upper cave level. The UCL behavior is consistent with further hydrogeochemical indices as saturation index or Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios. |