First investigation of perennial ice in Winter Wonderland Cave, Uinta Mountains, Utah, USA

Munroe, Jeffrey S.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-863-2021

Articles | Volume 15, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-863-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-863-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 2

Research article

|

18 Feb 2021

Research article |

| 18 Feb 2021

First investigation of perennial ice in Winter Wonderland Cave, Uinta Mountains, Utah, USA

Jeffrey S. Munroe

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Final revised paper (published on 18 Feb 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 10 Aug 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of Munroe (2020)', Aurel Perşoiu, 26 Sep 2020
- AC1: 'Respone to Aurel Perşoiu', Jeffrey Munroe, 02 Nov 2020
RC2: 'review of Munroe (2020)', Marc Luetscher, 14 Oct 2020
- AC2: 'Respone to Marc Luetscher', Jeffrey Munroe, 02 Nov 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (11 Nov 2020) by Christian Hauck

AR by Jeffrey Munroe on behalf of the Authors (20 Nov 2020) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (10 Dec 2020) by Christian Hauck

RR by Aurel Perşoiu (16 Dec 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I think the author addressed most of the issues raised during the review processes. I have several issues that I think should be addressed (see below), and also some others that could come from differing points of view – safely to be left out of the discussion.

General comments:

Please add info to the type and frequency of porosity (primary and secondary, including information on the presence of fractures and fissures). These info are important for the understanding of water and air circulation within the rock above the cave and ultimately on how water reaches the cave to freeze into the ice block.

14C Calibration – please use the newest curve (IntCal 20). The differences are small compared to IntCal13, indeed, but than, why bother with advancements if we don’t use them?

Stable isotope nomenclature
E.g, lines 18-20 in the abstract: In line 18, δ18O and δ2H values are discussed and than in line 19 “depleted winter precipitation” are mentioned. Winter precipitation can be depleted in 18O relative to summer precipitation, not in δ18O. In general, depleted, enriched, less depleted etc should be avoided – being comparative words, every time the two terms of the comparison should be presented. This depletion does not usually refers to SMOW, as except for some highly evaporated samples or os, all others are depleted relative to SMOW.
Please say something like “winter precipitated is depleted in heavy isotopes compared to summer one”, “winter precipitations has lower δ18O values”, “winter pp has lower 18O/16O ratios compared to summer one” or similar throughout the manuscript. Check also Sharp, Z. Principles on stable isotope geochemistry (2nd edition)

This should be mentioned in the article: “Possibly, but this cannot be proven or disproven from the available evidence. In reality I think that the central and forward part of the cave where the breakdown is concentrated probably represent a mixing zone between ice derived from water entering the rear of the cave and flowing forward, and ice derived from water that runs into the Icicle Room through the entrance.”

Line 382: please detail the mixing model and how the quoted percentage were obtained

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RR by Marc Luetscher (23 Dec 2020)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (11 Jan 2021) by Christian Hauck

AR by Jeffrey Munroe on behalf of the Authors (13 Jan 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (14 Jan 2021) by Christian Hauck

AR by Jeffrey Munroe on behalf of the Authors (15 Jan 2021) Manuscript

Short summary

This study investigated a cave in Utah (USA) that contains a deposit of perennial ice. Such ice caves are important sources of information about past climate and are currently threatened by rising temperatures. The origin (precipitation), thickness (3 m), and age (several centuries) of the ice were constrained by a variety of methods. Liquid water recently entered the cave for the first time in many years, suggesting a destabilization of the cave environment.