Mona and Marius have been working intensively on the assessment of the coarse grain size classes for the bulk sediments sampled from both Norcemgrotta and Nygrotta caves. Almost 150 sub-samples were weighed (100-250 g), color assessed (Munsell scale), wet sieved (through 32 mm à <63μm sieves), oven dried (105°C) and weighed again with a high precision scale.
Based on the grain size profiles of the samples we were able to tentatively correlate the presumably fossil abundant layers from both caves. Of course, more data is needed (e.g. mineralogy) for the analyzed caves but we took another important step towards better understanding the palaeohydrology of this amazing karst system!
Now the finest grain-size sub-samples are being submitted to fine grain-size analyses (<63μm) using a particle analyzer (laser diffraction) available at Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). It will be exciting to see what this brings!