Uranium-series dating of travertine from Süttő: Implications for reconstruction of environmental change in Hungary

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Abstract

Terrestrial carbonate formations, such as travertines, speleothems and lake sediments, are important archives of terrestrial climate forcing. At the Süttő section in Hungary, a complex succession of travertine is covered by a loess-palaeosol sequence; both are high resolution terrestrial archives of climate and environment change. Uranium-series (230Th/U) dating was carried out to set up a more reliable chronological frame for the travertine. As the growth of travertine is very complex, pore cements may cause serious problems for precise dating. The state of alteration of primary spar and micrite was characterised by microscopic, cathodoluminescence and microprobe analyses. The travertine from Süttő showed homogeneous phases of primary calcite, minor micropores and rare pore cements. The carbon isotopic composition indicates that the source of carbon was a mixture of atmospheric and soil derived CO2. Calculated water temperatures based on oxygen isotope data range from 22 °C to 31 °C. An attempt to provide an independent relative dating approach by palaeomagnetic techniques failed. 230Th/U ages were determined applying an isochron approach using the leachate/leachate method. As the travertine deposits have a dense structure, the bulk sampling method was successfully applied in determining uranium-series ages with much higher precision than former studies with alpha spectrometry. Travertines from Süttő yielded Mid-Pleistocene ages ranging from the antepenultimate glacial to the penultimate interglacial (310–240 ka). These results are in agreement with those from optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating and amino acid racemisation (AAR) dating of the overlying sediment indicating at least an MIS 7 age for the travertine.

Introduction

Secondary carbonates, such as travertine and calcareous tufa commonly formed in the Pannonian basin during the Quaternary. These calcareous deposits are important terrestrial archives of climate and environment change for the Middle and Upper Pleistocene periods. The travertine has played a key role in correlating fluvial terraces along the Danube valley, being an area of strong regional differences in neotectonic activity (Ruszkiczay-Rüdiger et al., 2005a, Ruszkiczay-Rüdiger et al., 2005b). Travertine complexes are widely distributed in the Pannonian basin and most of them correlate to the Quaternary. The youngest six travertine complexes were deposited on fluvial terraces along the Danube valley and its tributaries (Pécsi, 1973). These travertine deposits host important palaeontological and archaeological finds, like at Tata (Kretzoi, 1964, Vértes, 1964, Dobosi, 2003), at Vértesszőlős (Pécsi, 1973, Dobosi, 2003) and at Süttő (Brunnacker et al., 1980, Jánossy and Krolopp, 1981).

Travertines are secondary carbonates precipitated from groundwater saturated in Ca(HCO3)2 in areas of freshwater discharge, mainly from karstic reservoirs. The formation of meteogene travertine strongly depends on the temperature and humidity of the climate (Pentecost, 2005). The reconstruction of the vegetation history from these secondary carbonates combined with palaeontological finds, geochemical results like stable isotopes and palaeomagnetic data provide important high-resolution terrestrial proxies from such environments, which can be correlated with the marine record (Martinson et al., 1987) or the ice core records (GRIP Members, 1993, Grootes et al., 1993, EPICA Community, 2004).

Several radiometric dating techniques are based on the radioactive decay chain of 238U and make dating possible over the time range of a few thousands up to about 1 million years (Schwarcz, 1989, Ivanovich and Harmon, 1992, Bourdon et al., 2003). They are applicable to a wide variety of materials that are encountered in Quaternary terrestrial deposits like fen peat, speleothem, lacustrine carbonate and travertine. Frank et al. (2000), for instance, already successfully applied 230Th/U dating to a travertine complex from the Neckar valley (Germany) which could be correlated to marine isotope stage 5c.

Alpha radiometric 230Th/234U dating has been applied to set up a preliminary chronological frame for terrace stratigraphy along the Danube valley, the reconstruction of climate and environment change and the evolution of hominides in Hungary and elsewhere (Harmon et al., 1980, Schwarcz and Skoflek, 1982, Hennig et al., 1983). However, these previous radiometric 230Th/234U dating approaches yielded a large scatter of ages without accurate age estimation, partly owing to the lack of correct detrital correction (Hennig et al., 1983).

In this study, the 230Th/U dating applying thermal ionisation mass spectroscopy (TIMS) in combination with polarisation microscopy, cathodoluminescence microscopy, electron microprobe analyses, and stable isotope measurements was carried out to study travertines from Süttő in Hungary. Additionally, samples for palaeomagnetic measurements were taken in order to determine magnetic polarity and, if applicable, to use palaeomagnetic secular variation as an indirect dating tool (Hambach et al., 2008).

The aim of this pilot study was to investigate the suitability of the travertine from Süttő for TIMS 230Th/U dating and to set up a more reliable chronological frame for these calcareous deposits, which are an important record for climate reconstruction.

Section snippets

Geological setting and sample description

The town Süttő is located at the Danube River about 60 km northwest of Budapest in Hungary near the border of Slovakia. The investigated sections at Süttő are the Új Haraszti and Hegyháti quarry, both located on the slope of the Haraszt Hill in the Gerecse Hills, a part of the Hungarian Mountain Range (Fig. 1). Northing and easting are 47°42′N and 18°24′E, respectively.

Travertines are quite common in Hungary and in the Gerecse Hills (Pécsi, 1973, Kele et al., 2006). In the studied area the

Cathodoluminescence and microprobe analyses

Polished thin sections were prepared for the samples from section A and for the two uppermost samples from section B (SÜ1F-B + SÜ2F-B). Polarisation microscopy and cathodoluminescence microscopy were applied to characterise the state of alteration of the travertine. A hot cathode luminescence microscope (Neuser type) equipped with a digital camera for image analysis was used. Cathodoluminescence microscopy enables the detection of spatial differences in chemistry of calcite phases to reconstruct

Petrography, cathodoluminescence and microprobe analyses

The studied thin sections were prepared from dense calcite precipitates with low porosity and small pore sizes <1 mm. Such dense layers may reflect primary growth, but can also be a result of cementation, i.e. diagenetic alteration. None of the sections showed lamination or bedding. Both, predominantly micritic and sparitic fabrics are present. The footwall sample (SÜ5-A) is mainly micritic, consisting of homogeneous micritic roundish grains (i.e. peloids) and “clumps”, 50–600 μm in size, that

Discussion

The petrographic and microfacies studies support the earlier model by Bakacsi and Mindszenty (2004). Most travertines precipitated from lacustrine environments on the slope of the Haraszt Hill. The thin section investigations reveal that borders of alternating rims in pores with changing colours from cathodoluminescence signals give evidence for changes in the chemistry of the calcite phases, and may be a proof of alteration. But these rims are rare even on the micro-scale. It was impossible to

Conclusion

The travertine from the Süttő section gave single 230Th/U ages consistent with geological estimates and in agreement with independent age control from the sediments covering the travertine in section B (Novothny et al., 2009). The TIMS 230Th/U ages significantly improved previously published chronologies. Palaeomagnetic investigations and supporting rock magnetic experiments prove that the travertine complex of Süttő is not a suitable object to study the past variations of the Earth's magnetic

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, grant No. FR877/6-1 and HA2193/7-1). The paper benefited from the comments of two anonymous reviewers. Many thanks to Andrea Mindszenty for her helpful comments and remarks. We thank Sabine Mogwitz and Astrid Jaeckel for help with isotope analysis and Ulrich Schwarz-Schampera and Thomas Pletsch for their assistance with the cathodoluminescence equipment. Particular thanks to Juliane Herrmann for her help in preparing the

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