U-Th chronology results of Siberian and Mongolian speleothems, data used as the basis of a scientific paper. (NERC Grant NE/G013829/1)

The data presented in the Table 1 are U-Th chronology results of Siberian and Mongolian speleothems. This data is a basis for a scientific paper of Vaks, A. et al. (2013) "Speleothems Reveal 500,000-Year History of Siberian Permafrost." Science 340 (6129): 183-186. The table shows the ages of 111 layers of 36 speleothems taken from the six caves of Siberia and Mongolia. Vadose speleothems grow in caves of unsaturated zone when atmospheric water infiltrates into the caves from the surface. Therefore these speleothems cannot grow in permafrost, as well as in dry desert conditions. Therefore in Siberia the periods of speleothem growth show intervals during which the Siberian permafrost thawed and became discontinuous or absent. In Mongolian Gobi Desert the speleothem deposition periods show when the desert was both humid than present and warm enough to enable water infiltration into the caves. The data presented in tables 2 and 3 are OxCal-4.1 modeling results of the Table 1 chronology data for the Holocene (Table 2) and Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 5.5 (Table 3). The tables show exact durations of Holocene and MIS-5.5 permafrost thawing periods in Botovskaya and Okhotnichya Caves.