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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 cockpit is (jamaican.) 1. any closed depression having steep sides. 2. a star-shaped depression having a conical or a lightly concave floor. the surrounding hill slopes are steep and convex. cockpits are the common type of closed depressions in a kegelkarst [10].?
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Featured articles from Cave & Karst Science Journals
The paper is a geomorphological classification of pseudokarst forms in Czechoslovakia/Bohemien Massif and the Carpathians. In the author's opinion, forms occurring in non-carbonate rocks, are morphologically and often genetically analogous to the forms of karst relief, and are pseudokarst phenomena. They are divided according to their size into macroforms in sandstone morphostructures of the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin some types of rocky valleys, water-shed plains and ridges, forming rock cities in some places, mesoforms with six types of caves, sinkholes, rock perforations and several rock phenomena and microforms such as weather pits and niches, lapies, etc.. The most prominent pseudokarst phenomena have been formed in the sandstones of the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin whose relief may be considered "pseudokarst". They are also common in other sediments; in neovolcanic rocks and granitic rocks, as well as in other types of rocks. Pseudokarst forms are the product of geomorphological processes, especially weathering and denudation, block rock slides, erosion, suffosion, etc. Most of them have been developing in the recent mild humid climatic conditions.
Marine fossils of Pleistocene age are known to occur in beach ridges near the border of northern Florida and southern Georgia at elevations of between 42 and 49 m above mean sea level. No evidence exists for a massive melt-off of glacial ice, which would be required to raise sea level to these elevations. Florida, therefore, must have been uplifted epeirogenically during the Pleistocene. Measurement of dissolved solids in Florida's springs demonstrates that the karst area is losing a minimum of 1.2 X 10 6 m 3 /yr of limestone through spring flow, the equivalent of 1 m of surficial limestone every 38,000 yr. This loss has led to an isostatic uplift of the north-central part of the Florida peninsula of at least 36 m during the Pleistocene and Holocene, which agrees with observed elevations of marine terraces.--Modified journal abstract
The Pliocene to Holocene limestones of Barbuda have formed on a wide, shallow, outlying bank of the Lesser Antilles island arc, some 50 km east of the older axis of the Limestone Caribbees and 100 km east of the newer axis of the active Volcanic Caribbees. Contrasts with neighbouring islands of similar size include the lack of exposed igneous basement or mid-Tertiary sediments, the dominance of younger flat-lying carbonates, and the greater frequency of earthquake shocks. The history of emergence of the island has been studied through aerial reconnaissance, mapping, logging, hand coring, facies and microfacies analysis. These show a pattern of progressively falling high sea level stands (from more than 50 m down to the present level) on which are superimposed at least three major phases of subaerial exposure, when sea levels were close to, or below, their present level. This sequence can be summarized as follows: 1, bank edge facies (early Pliocene Highlands Formation) deposited at not more than c. 50-100 m above the present sea level; 2, emergence with moderate upwarping in the north, associated with the Bat Hole subaerial phase forming widespread karst; 3, older Pleistocene transgression with fringing reefs and protected bays formed at l0 to l5 m high sea level stands (Beazer Formation); 4, Marl Pits subaerial phase with widespread karst and soil formation; 5, late Pleistocene transgression up to m high stand with fringing and barrier reefs, protected backreefs and bays (Codrington Formation Phase I); 6, gradual regression resulting in emergence of reefs, enclosure of lagoons, and progradation of beach ridges at heights falling from c. 5 m to below present sea level (Codrington Phase II); 7, Castle Bay subaerial phase produced karst, caliche and coastal dunes that built eastwards to below present sea level; and 8, Holocene transgression producing the present mosaic, with reefs, lagoons and prograding beach ridge complexes, with the present sea level reached before c. 4085 years BP. The evidence suggests that slight uplift took place in the north of the island after early Pliocene times. Subsequent shoreline fluctuations are consistent with glacio-eustatic changes in sea level, indicating that the island has not experienced significant uplift during the Quaternary
PSEUDO-KARST IN SANDY-CLAY (LAS BARDENAS NAVARRA-, SPAIN) - The spectacular badlands of Las Bardenas are situated south of the Navarra province (NE Spain); they develop in the sandy-clay (Oligo-Miocene) of the tertiary Ebra basin, with a semi-arid climatic context (<400 mm/year). Pseudo-karstic landforms have been observed near mini-canyons: sinkholes, pits, caves, natural bridges... This morphology of mechanical origin is possible because the running waters disappear underground into the decompression fissures generated on the edges of canyon cliffs. Yet, in a few caves, the gallery is made directly in the mass of sandy-clay, without the help of joints, cracks or fissures ("piping"). This recent pseudo-karst and badlands are the obvious consequence of the historical destruction of forest during the Middle Age.
THE " CAUSSE COMTAL " (AVEYRON, FRANCE): GEOLOGY, HYDROGEOLOGY AND INVENTORY OF MAIN CAVES - The " Causse Comtal " (S = 265 km2) forms a sedimentary bridge between the " Causses du Quercy " in the west and the " Grands Causses " in the east. With a middle humid climate (P = 1000 mm/y, T = 9,4 °C, Evap. = 450-500 mm/y), this plateau karst presents two aquifer levels in the Lower and Middle Jurassic separated by a marly layer. These formations cover a paleozoic basement (sandstone, argillite from Carboniferous and Permian, crystalline rocks). The hydrogeological basins are controlled by E-W reverse faults due to the N-S pyrenean compression. The main spring is near Salles-la-Source in the western part (average discharge: 840 l/s; flood : 10 m3/s); it drains a 50-55 km2 area. The morphological and speleological evolution is subordinated to an erosion surface from Upper Cretaceous - Tertiary. Often stopped up (blocking), the numerous fossil caves probably date from the end of Cenozoic era. The large subterranean passages (active or semi-actives galleries; ex.: Tindoul de la Vayssière) are plio-quaternary.
Karst features occur in Pleistocene aeolian calcarenite dunes at Bats Ridge near Portland, Victoria. The surficial and underground features show that the caves are sinuous shallow systems often with a number of entrances. Passage shape is often modified by collapse. Characteristic features such as speleothems, clastic sediments, solution pipes and foibes are described, especially "moonmilk". Syngenetic karst processes are briefly discussed.
Widespread but patchily distributed drought death of forest trees occurred in early 1988 on a limestone ridge at Mole Creek in Tasmania. A close juxtaposition of damaged and undamaged vegetation probably reflects differences in the speed of soil moisture decline down the length of individual soil-filled solution tubes in which trees are rooted. Possible palaeoecological, geomorphological and sivicultural implications are briefly reviewed.
SINKS OF THE OSSAU GAVE AND SOURCE OF THE NEEZ RIVER (PYRENEES) - A “Gave” is a mountain torrent in the Pyrenees. The water supply of the city of Pau is depending almost entirely on a karstic spring called “Oeil du Neez” (the Neez Eye, which means spring of the Neez). L’Oeil du Neez is the main resurgence - among several others - of water sinks in the Gave bed across the urgonian limestone ridge of Arudy. Development of this karstic system through the complex structural setting of a frontal thrust has been favoured by the geomorphic evolution of the Arudy basin, dammed to the north by a morainic loop, but also by the presence of highly suitable hydrodynamic and tectonic conditions (water head and fractures network). Water quality of the Oeil du Neez is closely depending on Gave water quality. However, the catchment area proper, of this resurgence, exerts its own chemical influence.
Subterranean networks of cavities and fissures can present circulatory systems facilitating convective and advective transport of radon-bearing air. Evidence points to aerostatic pressure differentials being the principal driving force for subterranean transport of radon in some hilly limestone terrains of the southern Appalachians; differences between the underground and outside air temperatures, and the concomitant differences in air density, appear to be the dominant factor in producing the differences in aerostatic pressure. Examples are presented of houses experiencing elevated indoor levels as a consequence of being built on top of and apparently communicating with such subterranean systems. The location of a house near the upper or lower end of a subterranean circulatory system can result in amplification of indoor radon levels in winter or summer, respectively. These phenomena have been studied in and around houses located in the hilly karst areas of Huntsville, AL, and Oak Ridge, TN
Analyses and interpretation of an industrial multi-channel seismic grid, a 2.3 km-deep industrial well (NMA-1) and two ODP (Sites 715 and 716), have generated new insights into the evolution of the Maldives carbonate system, Equatorial Indian Ocean. The present physiography of the Maldives Archipelago, a double chain of atolls delineating an internal basin, corresponds only to the latest phase of a long and dynamic evolution, far more complex than the simple vertical build-up of reef caps on top of thermally subsiding volcanic edifices. Through the Cenozoic evolution of the Maldives carbonate system, distinct phases of vertical growth (aggradation), exposure, regional or local drowning, and recovery of the shallow banks by lateral growth (progradation) have been recognized. The volcanic basement underlying the Maldives Archipelago is interpreted to be part of a volcanic ridge generated by the northern drift of the Indian plate on top of the hotspot of the island of Reunion. The volcanic basement recovered at well NMA-1 and ODP Site 715 has been radiometrically dated as 57.2 1.8 Ma (late Paleocene) by 40Ar-39Ar. Seismic and magnetic data indicate that this volcanic basement has been affected by a series of NNE-SSW trending subvertical faults, possibly associated with an early Eocene strike-slip motion along an old transform zone. The structural topography of the volcanic basement apprears to have dictated the initial geometry of the Eocene and early Oligocene Maldives carbonate system. Biostratigraphic analyses of samples, recovered by drilling in Site 715 and exploration well NMA-1, show that the Maldives shallow carbonate system was initiated during the early Eocene on top of what were originally subaerial volcanic edifices. The Eocene shallow carbonate sequence, directly overlying the volcanic basement at NMA-1, is dolomitized and remains neritic in nature, suggesting low subsidence rates until the early Oligocene. During this first phase of the Maldives carbonate system evolution, shallow carbonate facies aggraded on top of basement highs and thick deep-water periplatform sediments were deposited in some central seaways, precursors of the current wider internal basins. In the middle Oligocene, a plate reorganization of the equatorial Indian Ocean resulted in the segmentation of the hotspot trace and the spreading of the Maldives away from the transform zone. This plate reorganization resulted in increasing subsidence rates at NMA-1, interpreted to be associated with thermal cooling of the volcanic basement underlying the Maldives carbonate system. This middle Oligocene event also coincides with a regional irregular topographic surface, considered to represent a karst surface produced by a major low-stand. Deep-water carbonate facies, as seen in cuttings from NMA-1, overlie the shallow-water facies beneath the karst surface which can, therefore, be interpreted as a drowning unconformity. In the late Oligocene, following this regional deepening event, one single central basin developed, wider than its Eocene counterparts, and the current intraplatform basin was established. Since the early to middle Miocene, the shallow carbonate facies underwent a stage of local recovery by progradation of neritic environments towards the central basin. The simultaneous onset in the early middle Miocene of the monsoonal wind regime may explain the development of bidirectional slope progradations in the Maldives. During the late Miocene and the early Pliocene, several carbonate banks were locally drowned, whereas others (i.e. Male atoll) display well-developed lateral growth through margin progradations during the same interval. Differential carbonate productivity among the atolls could explain these diverse bank responses. High-frequency glacialeustatic sea-level fluctuations in the late Pliocene and Pleistocene resulted in periodic intervals of bank exposure and flooding, and developed the present-day physiography of atolls, with numerous faros along their rims and within their lagoons
The South-East Karst Province of South Australia is an extensive area of low relief with dolines, cenotes, uvalas, and a variety of cave types developed in the soft, porous, flat-lying Tertiary Gambier Limestone and also as syngenetic karst in the overlying calcarenite dunes of the Pleistocene Bridgewater Formation. The most spectacular surface karst features are the large collapse dolines, especially those that extend below the water table to form cenotes. Shallow swampy hollows occur in superficial Quaternary sediments. These are an enigmatic feature of the Bool Region, where all gradations appear to occur between definite karst dolines and nonkarstic hollows. Some depressions may be polygenetic-involving a combination of: (1) primary depositional hollows on coastal flats or in dune fields, (2) deflation, and (3) karst solution and subsidence. There are extensive underwater cave systems in the southern part of the province, and the bulk of the cave development there may well lie below the present water table, although these systems would have been at least partly drained during the lower sea levels of the last glacial period. Systematic variations within the province reflect differences in the parent rock types, the extent and nature of the cover and, most importantly, the hydrology-in particular the depth to the water table and its gradient