Discussion of Results

December 9, 2022

Generally, our results showed that we were able to get high-precision, accurate data from small amounts of sample. Our data has multiple enrichment events over a three year period, likely linked to soil moisture and temperature changes in the vadose zone. There does not appear to be a significant pattern of enrichment during certain times of the year, rather a longer periodic trend emerges. Based on our plate calcite data, there do not appear to be significant variations in temporal patterns based on the part of the plate that is sampled. In the future, only one portion of the plates could be sampled, as long as it is the same part of the drip precipitate that is measured on each plate.

There do not seem to be weighing errors propagated through the samples, as many analytes remain relatively constant and within expected ranges for all samples. This suggests that we are able to acquire high enough weighing precision that scraping extremely small samples is reasonable. 

In the future, we plan on further processing our data to include other analytes outside the initial scope of our research question to include organometallic elements that could be related to fluorescence observed in CFLM in speleothems. We will also include many more calcite plate samples to fill in temporal gaps that will hopefully connect many of the patterns in the dripwaters to what is preserved as precipitate. 

One major consideration is that we had extremely low levels of Si/Ca observed in both dripwaters and calcite plates. This suggests that there is little silica in the dripwaters that could be left on the plates, and that we are successfully avoiding sampling the glass plate that the calcite is collected on. When performing laser ablation, we will need to keep this under consideration as a method for determining how much of the calcite is actually being sampled as opposed to glass.