Comments on: Stalagmite Gives Further Evidence that Climate Change Contributed to Mayan Collapse

By: chiangraiken

chiangraiken — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:16:27 +0000

I would venture it’s just as much due to over-harvesting of resources in the vicinity of villages. People are still doing so currently. In Middle East regions, the eco-devastation of centuries ago was more devastating because they started with a Mediterranean eco-system which was readily over-harvested. At least the Maya had a jungle environement which was a bit more resilient, and didn’t devolve to pure desert as the Middle East did.

By: Pippa

Pippa — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 13:45:35 +0000

Collapse of any civilisation is likely mutifactorial, but identifying the major changes that go towards forcing a civilisation in the direction of tumultuous change and collapse can be helpful – especially as one or more are likely to be the tipping point. If only we showed more evidence of learning from the lessons that history can teach us.

By: Kevin N

Kevin N — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 06:04:22 +0000

You don’t need to come up with climatological reasons why a civilization perished. It’s composed of people. Any number of things can go wrong.

By: geack

geack — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:48:33 +0000

As jd says, the time it takes water to get from the surface to the stalagmite isn’t necessarily huge, plus it’s not necessarily variable. Barring major geologic changes, water penetration can remain fairly constant. So even if the time from surface to stalagmite is large, once you have a good idea what it is, you can correlate the stalagmite deposits to the surface activity. The rate at which a stalagmite grows relative to the rate of water flow is also reasonably consistent. Apparently the researchers were able to establish these two variables in this location with sufficient precision to allow them to “read” the deposits at 6-month resolution. I assume this was due to local geology that results in very consistent penetration and deposition rates. At other places such resolution would likely be impossible.

By: jd

jd — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:13:39 +0000

Depends on the cave. For some, it can take 1000s of years. but there are some caves near where I live that are in such porous rock that the water dripping off the stalagmites is practically in real time with the rain.

By: John Lerch

John Lerch — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:21:19 +0000

How can they figure 6 month intervals? I mean the water that creates a stalagmite started its journey from the surface some huge variable length of time before.