Speleothem

Speleothems are mineral deposits formed from groundwater within underground caverns. Stalagmites, stalactites, and other forms may be annually banded or contain compounds that can be radiometrically dated. Thickness of depositional layers or isotopic records can be used to determine past climate conditions.

Obtaining Data at the World Data Center

Search Datasets

• Interactive Map
  Select study locations by region, proximity to a point, or text-based attributes.
• Google Earth Map
  Locate and download speleothem studies using a Google Earth map interface. Google Earth must be installed to use this search tool.
• Search All Paleoclimatology Data
  Access a free text search of our entire study archive.
• Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Catalog Service for the Web
  ​Harvest paleoclimatology study metadata records using an OGC web service.

Browse Datasets

• List of Speleothem Datasets by Title and Investigator
• List of Speleothem Datasets by Location
• Speleothem Datasets from Our FTP Site
• Shah et al. 2011 0-22K Speleothem Oxygen Isotope Data
• Cheng et al. 2009 8.2k Event Speleothem Oxygen Isotope Data, Text or Excel
• Smith et al. 2006 500-year Northern Hemisphere Speleothem Temperature Reconstruction, Text or Excel

Contributing Data

Investigators who wish to contribute their data to our speleothem archive can find information on contributing below. Data and study description information can be contributed by emailing completed data contribution templates to paleo@noaa.gov.

• General Information on Contributing Data

Other Data Archives

Additional sources of data and information on speleothems.

• Trieste 2008 Workshop Report on Speleothems
• Extended Devils Hole Isotope Record, 567 - 4 KYrBP, Landwehr et al. 2011
• Devils Hole DH11 Isotope Record, 567 - 60 KYrBP, Landwehr et al. 1997