Quantifi cation of the development of solution dolines provides important information for  understanding the long-term evolution of karst landscapes. This study reports the initial  results of an investigation of the long-term denudation rates along the side slopes of a solution  doline based on analyses of cosmogenic 36Cl in calcite. The denudation rates increase in  proportion with increasing size of the topographic contributing area, thereby supporting the  hypothesis that the rate of surface lowering in carbonate terrains is controlled by water convergence  in the epikarst. A simple model based on the empirical correlation between denudation  rate and contributing area is successful in explaining the form of several solution dolines  located close to the analyzed doline. The model reveals that these solution dolines, which have  varying diameters, developed over similar time scales of the order of 105 yr.

Identifying cave levels provides insight into cave development and climatic changes that have affected a karst system over time. Cosmogenic dating has been used to interpret levels in Mammoth Cave and the Cumberland Plateau. This absolute dating technique has proven successful in determining cave paleoclimates and regional geomorphic history, but is expensive. The study presented here is a preliminary method to cosmogenic dating that can outline a region’s speleogenesis using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and published denudation rates. The Carter Cave system in northeastern Kentucky is within the karst landscape found along the western edge of the Appalachians and contains multiple daylighted caves at various elevations along valley walls. These characteristics make the Carter Caves an ideal location to apply GIS to cave level identification and evolution as described by Jacoby et al. (in review), who identified the cave levels within the area. The authors concluded that an argument can be made for either four or five cave levels in the Carter Cave system; however, studies identified four levels in both Mammoth Cave and the Cumberland Plateau. Further analysis indicated that the fifth level formed as a result of a change in lithology rather than an event that influenced the local base level. This research is an extension of the conclusions presented by Jacoby et al. (in review). The GIS was used to calculate the volume of surficial material lost within each level as a result of degradational geomorphic processes. Then, level thickness lost and published denudation rates were used to calculate the relative time required to form each level. There was not one denudation rate applicable to each level within the cave system, but the rates varied between 12 m/Ma and 40 m/Ma. This study concludes that the cave system took between 3.4 and 5.7 Ma to form. This study did not perform an absolute dating of cave sediments or assess any detailed stratigraphic influence.

U/Th dating of calcite speleotems of karst cavities in the south-west part of the Inner Range of the Mountainous Crimea permitted to establish age constrains for the period of termination of the hypogenic development of karst systems and for geomorphologic settings corresponding to incipient and mature expression of the Paleocene segment of the range in relief. This also allowed evaluating rates of denudational deepening of the southern longitudinal depression (SLD). It is found that the main elements of the relief in this belt of the fore-mountains had been formed during the second half of Middle Pleistocene, which changes substantially a concept of the age of the relief for the region toward younger values. The rate of denudational deepening of the depression is determined to be 1.36 (±0,08) mm/a. For the time intervals of the second half of Middle Pleistocene (250 – 130 ka) and Late Pleistocene – Holocene (last 130 ka) the rates are, respectively, 0.9 and 1.8 mm/a, although determined with much higher error (±0,3 mm/a). The increase in the rates of the denudational deepening of the SLD during Late Pleistocene – Holocene indicates the respective increase in the uplift rates