Stalagmite offers clue to history
Times Staff and Wire Reports
An analysis of rings on a stalagmite from a cave near Jerusalem reveals a drier climate in the region when the Roman and Byzantine empires were in decline, scientists reported.
University of Wisconsin geologists analyzed the composition of rings as small as one-hundredth of a millimeter across that formed the stalagmite growing from the floor of the Soreq Cave near Jerusalem between 200 BC and AD 1100.
Geologists John Valley and Ian Orland concluded that the climate was drier in the eastern Mediterranean between AD 100 and 700, with steep declines in rainfall around 100 and 400, and they speculated that it helped bring about the end of the two empires. Their findings will be reported in the journal Quaternary Research.
