The development of gravitational caves versus periods of mass movement intensification during the humid phases of the Late Glacial and the Holocene: study of dated speleothems and slope deposits (Polish Outer Carpathians)

Abstract

Mass movements have been one of the most efficient processes controlling the morphogenesis of the Outer (Flysch) Carpathians. Dated by ¹⁴C method 180 landslides and related processes in the Polish Carpathians enabling to reconstruct mass movement chronology, confirm the thesis formulated by Starkel (1966), that the periods of acceleration of gravitational processes during the Late Glacial and the Holocene were connected with the stages of climatic humidity growths (Alexandrowicz, 1996; Margielewski, 2006; Starkel et al., 2013). Gravitational slope failures have often generated formation of non-karst caves. In the Polish part of the Outer Carpathians ca. 1400 caves, mainly of gravitational origin, have been explored up till now (Klassek, Mleczek, 2015). Part of these caves formed in the initial stage of landslide development, some ones formed during subsequent stages of landslide evolution (Margielewski, Urban, 2003; Lenart et al., 2013). Radiocarbon datings of speleothems allow us to reconstruct the stages of cave development and related mass movements. Pollen analysis of speleothems confirms these datings (Urban et al., 2015)