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. ...
A preliminary inquiry to the extent and boundaries of subterranean waterways within the Mystery Cave System was explored. Rhodamine WT dye in 500 ml quantities was used in fluormetry determinations of surface flow to ground water basins. A Turner Model 111 fluorometer was utilized for detection purposes powered by a portable 12 volt, 220 amp hour battery-inverter system. It was shown that water entered underground passageways through sinkholes or highly creviced limestone/dolomite rock strata and reappeared several kilometres downstream. The outflow appears in the form of "springs". The possibility exists that contaminated surface water may seep through the soil for long distances. It is obvious there is acute danger of underground contamination of municipal and private water supplies situated in this area.
A preliminary inquiry to the extent and boundaries of subterranean waterways within the Mystery Cave System was explored. Rhodamine WT dye in 500 ml quantities was used in fluormetry determinations of surface flow to ground water basins. A Turner Model 111 fluorometer was utilized for detection purposes powered by a portable 12 volt, 220 amp hour battery-inverter system. It was shown that water entered underground passageways through sinkholes or highly creviced limestone/dolomite rock strata and reappeared several kilometres downstream. The outflow appears in the form of "springs". The possibility exists that contaminated surface water may seep through the soil for long distances. It is obvious there is acute danger of underground contamination of municipal and private water supplies situated in this area.
Projected road improvements in south Hampshire included plans to dispose of surface drainage into soakaways to be sited near an area of swallow holes in the Chalk. An experiment was undertaken to establish if there was a direct connection between the swallow holes, located near the junction of the Chalk and the Lower Tertiary strata, and major springs used for water supply in the Havant area. As the swallow holes are dry except in periods of storm rainfall a tracer, the fluorescent dye Rhodamine WT, was injected together with a large volume of water into one of the swallow holes. Water samples were collected from the springs at Havant and analysed for Rhodamine WT using a Turner fluorometer. The tracer was found at both sets of springs sampled and the straight line velocity from input point to spring was in excess of 2 km per day. Computations based on the concentration of dye recovered from the springs show that in the event of a tanker spillage within the proposed drainage scheme severe contamination would be expected to occur at the springs. The experiment and the results obtained make it clear that extreme caution should be exercised to avoid contamination of fissure-flow within the Chalk aquifer
A new troglophilous cave-cricket, Discoptila beroni n.sp. is described and figured. It is common in the caves Maara near Mersin and Damlatas near Alanya in South Anatolia. The characteristic features of the males, as well as of the females, by which the new species is distinguished from the other eight species of the genus, all distributed in the Mediterranean, are pointed out. D. beroni n.sp. has already been reported erroneously from the cave Damlatas as D. fragosoi (Bol.) and as D. brevis B.-Bien.
In the first part of the note we present a minute description of the species B.(B.) boteai Serban, B. (B.) motrensis Serban and B. (B.) plesai Serban. The provisional diagnosis of these species were already published in 1971. A new species B.(B.) vaducrisensis is also described. The genus Bathynella Vejdovsky is now known in the Romanian fauna with 6 species: four of them already mentioned, plus B. (B.) paranatans Serban and B. (B.) scythica Botosaneanu and Damian.
In the neighbourhood of a possible dam site in the Waga Valley, Southern Highlands District, Papua New Guinea, there is little surface drainage apart from the Waga River itself. However, many nearby features - streamsinks, springs, estavelles, dry valleys, dolines and caves - are indicative of the marked development of karst drainage. Loss of river water by entry underground is not balanced by the known local outflows, and larger resurgences must be sought further afield to complete an understanding of the karst hydrology relevant for the engineering proposal.
Rhodamine WT, leucophor HBS and fluorescein were inserted into Deep, Eagles Nest and Traverse Creeks respectively, all sinking wholly or partly into the limestone at Yarrangobilly, as part of a program to determine the catchment area of Hollin Cave. Hollin Cave and three other major springs, together with the Yarrangobilly River above, between and below these springs, were sampled for various periods manually or by machine. Heavy rains began a day after dye insertion. Various lines of evidence and analysis, including the plotting of regression residuals between different wavebands as time series, showed that the relevant fluorescent wavebands were affected by rises in natural fluorescence in the runoff, probably of organic origin. Green was affected most, then blue, and orange only slightly. It was possible to identify a dye pulse of rhodamine at Hollin Cave, most probably representing all the dye put in. A leucophor dye pulse was also identifiable here but a load curve could not be constructed because of probable interference by changing natural fluorescence. Tracing by fluorescein became impossible. Interference between the three dyes was demonstrated. The implications for future quantitative tracing here are discussed.
The fracturation of the sub-autochthonous massif of the Azerou el Kebir is not fundamentally different from that of the adjoining allochthonous massif; where the structures are due to an Alpine phase, known as the Atlas phase. As with all fractures, karstification only exploits certain of them, without having any linkage to their statistical importance, caves have developed following fractures which are qualitatively important, but are poorly represented quantitatively. The study of the karstification therefore, confirms his complementary to the structural analysis in order to elucidate the technical problems of fracturation in the region.
Because of the fundamental biological investigations and also of the practical importance, the authors investigated interstitial subterranean water (hyporheic) near a polluted river Sava in the plain where the underground waters are considered as potable. With the comparison of the physical, chemical, bacteriological, saprobiological and faunistic characteristics of the river and its hyporheic zone in different seasons their mutual relation is detected. The results show the influence of polluted river water on the hyporheic water within the river bed to at least 2 m depth.
Both sexes of a new species of Bogidiella, B. martini, are described. The new species, with a very pronounced sexual dimorphism, has been discovered in two wells in the island of St.-Martin (French part), one of the Lesser Antilles. Another member of Bogidiella has been recorded from the island of Curaçao, but the specimens were damaged too much to allow proper description. The Bogidiellidae (5 genera, 26 named species, and several unnamed species) are present in the sea as well as in inland waters. The family has a wide distribution, exceeding the boundaries of the former Tethys Sea. Probably, they represent a very old stock that had acquired already a great part of its present-day distribution before the fragmentation of the primordial continent of Pangaea during the Mesozoic.
The locomotory activity of adult cave fishes Astyanax jordani was recorded in isolation in the following light and temperature conditions: constant conditions (100 Lx; 200C), in a light cycle (LD:11/11 -10 Lx -100 Lx) and in a temperature cycle (11/11; 17/20, 19/22, 20/23, 27/30 °C). All longitudinal time series extended for a minimum of 30 days. Results show: (1) That no circadian regulation appears in constant conditions; (2) that passive entrainment occurs in LD (Amplitude: 90 Lx) and in periodic temperature conditions (Amplitude: 3°C). The entrainment effect damps out and varies individually; (3) that the mean activity increases with temperature; (4) The adjustment of activity to periodic signals is individually stable. These results suggest that A. Jordani is devoid of any endogenous oscillator of the circadian type. The observed thermal adaptation could have the following functions: (1) To increase the level of activity in function of the thermal level under the form of passive entrainment; (2) To enhance the exploratory behaviour of the fish in search of a thermal preference allowing the animal to keep inside a well defined zone of the subterranean biotope in relation to small local temperature changes.
From the first millennium B.C. through the 9th-century A.D. Classic Maya collapse, nonurban populations grew exponentially, doubling every 408 years, in the twin-lake (Yaxha-Sacnab) basin that contained the Classic urban center of Yaxha. Pollen data show that forests were essentially cleared by Early Classic time. Sharply accelerated slopewash and colluviation, amplified in the Yaxha subbasin by urban construction, transferred nutrients plus calcareous, silty clay to both lakes. Except for the urban silt, colluvium appearing as lake sediments has a mean total phosphorus concentration close to that of basin soils. From this fact, from abundance and distribution of soil phosphorus, and from continuing post-Maya influxes (80 to 86 milligrams of phosphorus per square meter each year), which have no other apparent source, we conclude that riparian soils are anthrosols and that the mechanism of long-term phosphorus loading in lakes is mass transport of soil. Per capita deliveries of phosphorus match physiological outputs, approximately 0.5 kilogram of phosphorus per capita per year. Smaller apparent deliveries reflect the nonphosphatic composition of urban silt; larger societal outputs, expressing excess phosphorus from deforestation and from food waste and mortuary disposal, are probable but cannot be evaluated from our data. Eutrophication is not demonstrable and was probably impeded, even in less-impacted lakes, by suspended Maya silt. Environmental strain, the product of accelerating agroengineering demand and sequestering of nutrients in colluvium, developed too slowly to act as a servomechanism, damping population growth, at least until Late Classic time