Karst Paleo-Research Group

About the Group

diver under water

The Karst Paleo-Research Group focuses on paleoclimate, paleoenvironmental, and sea-level reconstructions using guano, ice, and speleothems from caves and lava tubes around the world.

 

Grants

2022-2026: NSF (P2C2): Collaborative Research: Constraints on Last Interglacial and Late Holocene Global Mean Sea Level and fingerprinting polar ice mass flux from broadly distributed coastal caves (PI)

2022-2024: National Park Service - Climate and vegetation reconstructions using ice and guano cores in lava tubes at El Malpais, NM (PI)

2016 - 2019: A 5-million-year record of western Mediterranean Sea level variability; National Science Foundation P2C2 program (PI).

2016 - 2018: Climate and vegetation reconstruction using ice and guano cores in lava tubes at El Malpais, NM;Â  National Park Service (PI)

 

NEWS

November 14 2024: How volcanic cave research is advancing the search for life on Mars

August 30 2024: What a submerged ancient bridge discovered in a Spanish cave reveals about early human settlement

June 30 2022: Hidden in caves: Mineral overgrowths reveal unprecedented modern sea-level rise

June 21 2021: Could caves on other planets yield the secrets of the universe? USF Geoscientist Bogdan Onac and his international colleagues want to find out

 

Synergetic activities

Editor in Chief: International Journal of Speleology

President: Cave Minerals Commission (UIS)

Organizer: Sea level changes into MIS 5: from observations to predictions NSF workshop, Palma de Mallorca (April 10-14, 2012)

 

Research collaborations

Sea level changes based on cave deposits from Mallorca, Spain
collaboration with J. Fornos, A. Gines, J. Gines (Univ. Palma de Mallorca), J. A. Dorale (Univ. Iowa),  V. Polyak & Y. Asmerom (Univ. New Mexico), & P. Tuccimei (Univ. Rome 3).

Cave Minerals of the World Database (CAMIDA) is a collaborative project of the USF Libraries, UISs Cave Minerals Commission, the Karst Information Portal, -Emil Racovita- Institute of Speleology (Romania), and the Karst Research Group at University of South Florida. CAMIDA is an open-access collection of geological, mineralogical, crystallographical, and protection/conservation information on all minerals discovered in caves around the world.

Paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on cave bat guano
collaboration with F.L. Forray (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania), J.G. Wynn (NSF)

Mineralogy of mine caves in Sardinia, Italy
collaboration with J. De Waele, A. Naseddu, F. Sauro, P. Forti (Univ. Bologna)

Colorado River incision history of Grand Canyon from speleothems
collaboration with V. Polyak, C.A. Hill, A.N. Palmer, Y. Asmerom (UNM)

Paleoclimatic reconstructions based on ice deposits from Scarisoara Cave, Romania
collaboration with A. Persoiu (Speleo Institute Cluj),  J.G. Wynn (USF),  M. Ionita & N. Rimbu (Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany).

Holocene climate patterns in NW Romania based on speleothems
collaboration with V. Ersek (Northumbria University, UK) , V. Dragusin (Speleo Institute Bucharest), D. Fleitmann (Univ. Basel, Switzerland).