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1. Fern Cave: A Hotspot of Subterranean Biodiversity in the Interior Low Plateau Karst Region of Alabama in the Southeastern United States

   https://doi.org/10.3390/d15050633  

   Niemiller, Matthew L.; Slay, Michael E.; Inebnit, Thomas; Miller, Benjamin; Tobin, Benjamin; Cramphorn, Brendan; Hinkle, Amata; Jones, Bradley D.; Mann, Nathaniel; Niemiller, K. Denise; et al (May 2023, Diversity)

   The Fern Cave System, developed in the western escarpment of the Southern Cumberland Plateau of the Interior Low Plateau karst region in Northeastern Alabama, USA, is a global hotspot of cave-limited biodiversity as well as home to the largest winter hibernaculum for the federally endangered Gray Bat (Myotis grisescens). We combined the existing literature, museum accessions, and database occurrences with new observations from bioinventory efforts conducted in 2018–2022 to generate an updated list of troglobiotic and stygobiotic species for the Fern Cave System. Our list of cave-limited fauna totals twenty-seven species, including nineteen troglobionts and eight stygobionts. Two pseudoscorpions are endemic to the Fern Cave System: Tyrannochthonius torodei and Alabamocreagris mortis. The exceptional diversity at Fern Cave is likely associated with several factors, such as the high dispersal potential of cave fauna associated with expansive karst exposures along the Southern Cumberland Plateau, high surface productivity, organic input from a large bat colony, favorable climate throughout the Pleistocene, and location within a larger regional hotspot of subterranean biodiversity. Nine species are of conservation concern, including the recently discovered Alabama cave shrimp Palaemonias alabamae, because of their small range sizes, few occurrences, and several potential threats. 

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2. Bedrock type drives forest carbon storage and uptake across the mid-Atlantic Appalachian Ridge and Valley, U.S.A.

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2020.117881  

   Reed, Warren P.; Kaye, Margot W. (March 2020, Forest Ecology and Management)
3. Detrital zircon geothermochronology reveals pre-Alleghanian exhumation of regional Mississippian sediment sources in the southern Appalachian Valley and Ridge Province

   https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02427.1  

   McKay, Matthew; Jackson, William T.; Spurgeon, Derek; Ionescu, Adelie; Shaulis, Barry (November 2021, Geosphere)

   Abstract The Black Warrior foreland basin records sedimentation associated with the development of intersecting Ouachita and Alleghanian thrust belts along the southern margin of Laurentia. Mississippian–Pennsylvanian units in the Black Warrior basin are interpreted to be sourced from either the northern Appalachians and mid-continent or more regionally from the southern Appalachians or nearby Ouachita thrust belt. We present detrital zircon U-Pb ages and Th/U values from Paleozoic units that indicate zircon from the Mississippian Hartselle Sandstone are temporally and chemically compatible with being sourced from the southern Appalachians. Zircon mixing models suggest sediment was primarily recycled from Cambrian, Ordovician, and Devonian strata in the Appalachian Valley and Ridge, with minor influx from Piedmont units. A ca. 415 Ma zircon population requires additional input from the Maya Block of the Yucatan Peninsula or similar outboard terranes. We present zircon (U-Th)/He analysis and thermal history modeling of Paleozoic units, which detail pre-Alleghanian exhumation in the Appalachian Valley and Ridge. Both the Cambrian Chilhowee Group and Pennsylvanian Pottsville Formation exhibit (U-Th)/He dates ranging from 507 to 263 Ma with a Mississippian subset (353–329 Ma, n = 4), which indicates rapid cooling and inferred exhumation during Late Devonian–Early Mississippian Neoacadian tectonism. We propose a Mississippian drainage system that transported material along southern Appalachian structural fabrics to the juncture between Appalachian and Ouachita thrust belts followed by a sediment-routing rotation toward the Black Warrior foreland. This interpretation honors chemical-age zircon data, accounts for metamorphic grains in thin section petrography, and matches Mississippian–Pennsylvanian Black Warrior foreland lithostratigraphic relationships. 

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4. Alveolates (dinoflagellates, ciliates and apicomplexans) and Rhizarians are the most common microbial eukaryotes in temperate Appalachian karst caves

   https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-2229.13060  

   Cahoon, A. Bruce; VanGundy, Robert D. (August 2022, Environmental Microbiology Reports)
5. Quantifying the major drivers for the expanding lakes in the interior Tibetan Plateau

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scib.2021.11.010  

   Zhou, Jing; Wang, Lei; Zhong, Xiaoyang; Yao, Tandong; Qi, Jia; Wang, Yuanwei; Xue, Yongkang (March 2022, Science Bulletin)