Age and Depositional Temperature of Quaternary Travertine Spring Mounds from Slovakia

Abstract

Travertine spring mounds are common in Slovakia; however, their age and depositional temperature are still poorly known. Our study is the first multimethodological investigation involving stable carbon, oxygen, and clumped isotope (Δ47) analyses and U-Th age determination of travertine mounds from different locations in Slovakia (Santovka, Dudince, Čerin, Bešeňová, Liptovský Ján, Liptovské Sliače, Vyšné Ružbachy, Gánovce, and Sivá Brada) to provide information about their age, origin, precipitation conditions, and temperature. The positive δ13C values imply that the parent water was charged with heavy CO2 of deep origin. The δ18O values of spring waters range between −11.4‰ and −8.9‰, whereas the δ2H values vary from −80.5‰ to −58.3, indicating a meteoric origin for spring waters. Clumped isotope compositions (Δ47) correspond to a deposition temperature between 4 °C and 32 °C. The U-Th age data of the studied travertines vary from 1.2 (Liptovské Sliače) to 301 ka (Dudince). Our results can serve as a basis for further detailed geochronological and geochemical studies to reconstruct the paleoclimate and paleoenvironment during travertine deposition periods in Slovakia since the mid-Pleistocene transition.