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The mineral assemblage of caves within Şălitrari Mountain (Cerna Valley, SW Romania): depositional environment and speleogenetic implications

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Abstract

Eighteen minerals belonging to eight chemical groups were identified from three caves within Şălitrari Mountain, in the upper Cerna River basin (Romania) by means of scanning electron microscopy, electron microprobe analysis, and X-ray powder diffraction. One passage in the Great Cave from Şălitrari Mountain, the largest cave investigated, exhibits abnormal relative humidity and temperature ranges, allowing for a particular depositional environment. The cave floor is covered by alluvial sediments (ranging from cobble, sand, and clay to silt-sized material), bear bones, bat guano, and rubble. These materials reacted with percolating meteoric water and hydrogen sulfide-rich hypogene hot solutions, precipitating a variety of secondary minerals. Most of these minerals are common in caves (e.g. calcite, gypsum, brushite), however, some of them (alunite, aluminite, and darapskite) require very particular environments in order to form and persist. Cave passage morphologies suggest a complex speleogenetic history that includes changes from phreatic to vadose conditions. The latter was punctuated by a sulfuric acid dissolution/precipitation phase, partly overprinted by present-day vadose processes. The cave morphology and the secondary minerals associated with the alluvial sediments in these caves are used to unravel the region’s speleogenetic history.

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Acknowledgments

The Domogled-Valea Cernei National Park Administration generously allowed access to the field area and granted approval to remove specimens for analysis. Lucian Nicoliţă and Ioana Clonţa (Prusik Timişoara Speleo Club) provided an indispensable assistance during our field campaigns. Financial support by the Romanian National University Research Council (grant ID_544) to B. P. Onac is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also wish to express their thanks for the financial support provided by programs co-financed through the Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development, Contract POSDRU 6/1.5/S/3, “Doctoral Studies: Through Science toward Society”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave., SCA 528, Tampa, FL, 33620, USA

    Cristina M. Puşcaş & Bogdan P. Onac

  2. Department of Geology, “Babeş-Bolyai” University, Kogălniceanu 1, 400084, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Cristina M. Puşcaş, Bogdan P. Onac & Tudor Tămaş

  3. “Emil Racoviţă” Institute of Speleology, Clinicilor 5, 400006, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Bogdan P. Onac & Tudor Tămaş

Authors
  1. Cristina M. Puşcaş
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  2. Bogdan P. Onac
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  3. Tudor Tămaş
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Correspondence to Bogdan P. Onac.

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Detailed sample descriptions and sampling locations (PDF 68 kb)

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Puşcaş, C.M., Onac, B.P. & Tămaş, T. The mineral assemblage of caves within Şălitrari Mountain (Cerna Valley, SW Romania): depositional environment and speleogenetic implications. Carbonates Evaporites 25, 107–115 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13146-010-0015-4

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