Stable isotope data from White Scar Cave, Yorkshire from a Stalagmite collected in November 1997

This dataset describes a Holocene sequence of oxygen and carbon isotopes from speleothem carbonate. Stable isotope measurements were determined to allow the reconstruction of changes in temperature and air mass trajectory, and hence also atmospheric circulation. Stalagmite WSC-97-10-5 was collected by Pete Smart in October 1997 from White Scar Cave (54˚09'55.89'N, 2˚26'30.54'W), a show cave in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, 1.5 km NE of Ingleton. The sample was removed from the far (southern) end of the Battlefield Chamber (BCRA Cave Survey; Transactions of the British Cave Research Association v. 4 issue 3, 1977) to make way for the construction of the show-cave walkway. It is believed that sample WSC-97-10-5 was actively growing at the time of collection and was fed by a straw stalactite on the roof of the chamber. The sample was taken to Bristol University and stored intact until June 2006, when sectioning, polishing and the initial, low-resolution, stable isotope work took place. Stable isotope samples were extracted at 2-3 mm resolution using a diamond-tipped drill bit. Carbon and oxygen isotope measurements were made using a continuous He-flow IsoPrime mass spectrometer at Royal Holloway, University of London. Subsequent high-resolution stable isotope measurements were extracted at 150 μm resolution using a Merchantek Micromill at University College London, prior to analysis at Royal Holloway, University of London. A chronology for WSC-97-10-5 was provided by spline-fit age modelling applied to U-Th dates undertaken on the speleothem carbonate. U-Th dating and age modelling were undertaken by Phil Hopley, David Richards and Dirk Hoffmann at the University of Bristol. Uranium and Thorium were extracted and separated using column chemistry in a clean lab and isotope ratios were measured on a Thermo Scientific Neptune MC-ICP-MS at the University of Bristol.