Hidden Earth 2026

Understanding the Cave Before the Stalagmites: Cave Monitoring in Vietnam

30 minute Lecture|Chloe (snowling) Riviera

Abstract

Stalagmites are read as archives of past climate, but the cave itself has a climate of its own, one that can distort the climate signal before it ever reaches the stalagmite. In Vietnam, the winter monsoon sweeping down from Asia doesn't just change the weather outside; it reaches underground, driving the cave to ventilate in ways that show up clearly in real-time monitoring data. But the cave atmosphere is only half the story. Rainfall falling on the surface above the cave can take months to filter down through the rock before it ever reaches a growing stalagmite, arriving muted, delayed, and filtered along the way. Drawing on cave monitoring data at Soong Cave, I'll demonstrate how these fast and slow processes together shape the very stalagmites we rely on to reconstruct thousands of years of monsoon history in Southeast Asia.