Palaeomagnetic research on karst sediments in Slovenia

We have conducted palaeomagnetic and magnetostratigraphic research on karst sediments in Slovenia since 1997. More than 2,000 samples were taken and analysed in 36 different profiles at 21 locations in caves and on the surface. Standard palaeomagnetic analyses were used (thermal and alternating field demagnetisation, magnetic susceptibility measurements, etc.). There is no evidence of younger marine deposition than Eocene in the SW part of Slovenia. Younger sediments occur only in caves and very rarely on the karst surface (different soils and a few remains of terrigeneous sediments). Marine and terrestrial Tertiary to Plio–Quaternary deposition occurs in the SE and E Slovenia. Chronostratigraphy of cave sediments in SW Slovenia completed by Rado Gospodarič in the 1980s was based on Pleistocene warm/cold cycles. Later Th/U dating indicated that speleothems from different caves in Slovenia are older. New dating principally results from palaeomagnetism and magnetostratigraphy of cave sediments calibrated, in some sites, by Th/U, palaentological and geomorphological analyses. Calibrated data contributed to the reconstruction of speleogenesis, deposition in caves, and indirectly to the evolution of karst surfaces and succession of tectonic movements. The evolution of caves in the Slovenian territory took part within one post-Eocene karstification period. This period continues to the present, and can be subdivided into individual, but not well limited, phases related to Cenozoic palaeogeographical changes. The period contains distinct phases of massive deposition in caves with as yet still preserved sediments dated to about 5.4–4.1 Ma (Miocene–Pliocene), 3.6–1.8 Ma (Pliocene) and Quaternary, following the cessation of Miocene deposition in the Pannonian Basin in the central, E and SE Slovenia and post-Messinian evolution in the SW and W Slovenia