Hello everyone!
I pleased to invite you to the official site of Central Asian Karstic-Speleological commission ("Kaspeko")
There, we regularly publish reports about our expeditions, articles and reports on speleotopics, lecture course for instructors, photos etc. ...
Dear Colleagues, This is to draw your attention to several recent publications added to KarstBase, relevant to hypogenic karst/speleogenesis: Corrosion of limestone tablets in sulfidic ground-water: measurements and speleogenetic implications Galdenzi,
A recent publication of Spanish researchers describes the biology of Krubera Cave, including the deepest terrestrial animal ever found:
Jordana, Rafael; Baquero, Enrique; Reboleira, Sofía and Sendra, Alberto. ...
Exhibition dedicated to caves is taking place in the Vienna Natural History Museum
The exhibition at the Natural History Museum presents the surprising variety of caves and cave formations such as stalactites and various crystals. ...
Did you know?
That covered karst is 1. a fossil or currently developing karst in karst limestone which underlies superficial deposits or other rock, and which may produce landforms at the surface which reflect subsurface karstification [19]; contrasted with naked karst, which is soil free. see also buried karst; interstratal karst; mantled karst; subsoil karst; sulfate-reduction karst. 2. a generally subdued karst landscape developed where carbonate rocks are affected by dissolutional processes beneath a soil cover (see bare karst) [9]. synonyms: (french.) karst couvert; (german.) bedeckter karst; (greek.) kekalymenon karst; (italian.) carso coperto; (russian.) pokryty karst; (spanish.) karst cubierto; (turkish.) ortulu karst; (yugoslavian.) pokriveni krs, pokriti kras.?
Ice and speleothems are widely regarded as mutually exclusive as the presence of liquid water is a fundamental prerequisite for speleothem deposition. Here we show that speleothems may form in caves overlain by a glacier, as long as the temperature in the cave is above freezing and the conduits are not completely flooded by melt water. Carbonate dissolution is accomplished via sulfide oxidation and the resultant speleothems show high [delta]13C values approaching and locally exceeding those of the parent host rock (lack of soil-derived biogenic C). The [delta]18O values reflect the isotopic composition of the melt water percolating into the karst fissure network and carry an atmospheric (temperature) signal, which is distinctly lower than those of speleothems formed during periods when soil and vegetation were present above the cave. These `subglacial' speleothems provide a means of identifying and dating the former presence of warm-based paleoglaciers and allow us to place some constraints on paleotemperature changes