ESTABLISHING A TRACE METAL CONTENT DATABASE OF CAVE SEDIMENTS OF THE MIDCONTINENT U.S.A

The midcontinent of the United States has thousands of documented caves. Theses caves represent reservoirs of geologic information stored in speleothems and cave sediments. Recent work conducted by Doughty and Johnson (2012) has suggested that trace metal content of caves can vary based on urban or rural location. However, there is no known baseline or reference database for trace metals of midcontinent caves. This study is planned to establish a reference database of trace metals in cave sediments across the midcontinent. In order to develop this baseline, X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) will be applied to sediments with an anticipated suite of metals: As, Cd, Cu, Fe, Hg, Mn, Ni, Zn, Pb, and S being analyzed.

The cave selection process will be based on multiple factors that include urban or rural cave drainage basins, host rock formation age, rock type, and other characteristic. This study is primarily anchored in the Mississippian Limestone and Ordovician Dolostone of Missouri. However, we hope to expand to the Mississippian Limestone of Kentucky and the Permian Selenite of Oklahoma to establish a larger baseline database for the midcontinent.