Karst caves

Lauritzen, S.-E. and Gascoyne, M., 1980, The first radiometric dating of Norwegian stalagmites - evidence of pre-Weichselian karst caves, Norsk geografische Tidsskrift 34 11- 2. 

Hakl, J., Hunyadi, I., Csige, I., Gecky, G., Lenart, K.L. Varhegyi, A. (1997) Radon transport phenomena studied in karst caves - international experiences on radon levels and exposures. Radiation Measurements 28, 675-684. 

Surbeck, H., Medici, F., 1990. Rn-22 transport from soil to karst caves by percolating water. Mem. 22nd Congress lAH, Lausanne, pp. 348-355. 

The hot water with high CO2 content dissolved the limestone rapidly and karst caves formed when the magma intruded. Therefore, the closer to the magma, the higher COj concentration was in the water, and the more intensively the limestone dissolved, and the more the SCs developed. 

In the area of south China and west Hubei in middle China, carbonate rock is widely distributed and bare, and the landform is characterized by developed karst with large topographic relief, deep erosion gullies and rock fracture are very common, which provide convenience for disasters of rock falling and small landslide and there developed plenty of karst caves or rivers underground which give the advantage for earthquake collapse. In addition, there plenty of buried karst caves in the broad area of middle and north China, which provide convenience for earthquake collapse. 

Dissolution argillaceous limestone bank slopes widely distribute in Three Gorges reservoir area. It is easy to find that after dissolution argillaceous limestone will develop dissolution cracks and small karst caves in a wide range. Meanwhile, the rock formation is getting thin and rock is fractured. In Figure 2, there is an otherness dissolution strip... 

A karst structure . e. a limestone formation which has been eroded resulting in a large scale, open system comparable to a cave... 

The dissolution of carbonates can create spectacular features like those found in many caves. The process is termed karstification. Some reservoirs are related to Karst. Examples are the Bohai Bay Field in China or the Nang Nuan oil field in the Gulf of Thailand. These reservoirs are characterised by high initial production from the large open pore system. However, since the Karst features are connected downdip to the waterleg this is usually followed by rapid and substantial water breakthrough. ... 

Growth frequency. In high latitude regions of the globe, periodic advance of glaciers dramatically affected karst regions dripwater flow routes to the cave became permanently frozen, rate of production of soil CO2 was reduced and, in some cases, soil would have been stripped from the surface by ice masses. Harmon et al. (1977) recognized four distinct periods of deposition in the Rocky Mountains of North America... 

Dorale JA, Edwards RL, Ito E, Gonzalez LA (1998) Climate and vegetation history of the Midcontinent from 75 to 25 ka a speleothem record from Crevice Cave, Missonri, USA. Science 282 1871-1874 Dorale JA, Edwards RL, Onac BP (2002) Stable isotopes as enviromnental indicators in speleothems. In Karst Processes and the Carbon Cycle. Ynan, D-X (ed) Geological Pnbhshing Honse, Beijing, China, p 107-120... 

Latham AG, Ford DC (1993) The paleomagnetism and rock magnetism of cave and karst deposits. In Applications of Paleomagnetism to Sedimentary Geology. Aissaoui DM, McNeill DF, Hurley NF (eds). SEPM Special Publications. 49 149-155... 

Lauritzen S-E, Onac BP (1995) Uranium-series dating of speleothems from Romartian caves. Theor Appl Karst 8 25-36... 

Postpichl D, Agostini S, Forti P, (Quinif Y (1991) Paleoseismicity from karst sediments "Grotta del Cervo" cave, Central Italy. Tectonophysics 193 33-44... 

Karst An area underlain with thick limestones or other carbonate rocks, which results in abundant sinkholes and caves. 

In a warm and semi-arid climate thick calcretes can develop. Alteration in the vadose zone is relatively rapid but not as rapid as in the phreatic zone. Surface karst is present locally, and caves are small and rare. The mineralogical changes follow the pattern of Figure 7.25, but at a rate slower than that for a warm, subtropical climate like Bermuda. Under the extreme of a warm, wet tropical climate, extensive terra-rossa soils can develop, and dissolution features, such as caves, solution pipes and fractures, should be prevalent. Mineralogical stabilization should occur rapidly. 

Cao H., Cowart J. B., and Osmond J. K. (1999) Uranium and strontium isotopic geochemistry of karst waters, Leon Sinks geological area, Leon County, Elorida. Cave Karst Sci. 26, 101-106. 

Caves act as repositories for secondary deposits of many kinds, some locally derived such as breakdown from collapse of cavern roofs, some transported such as sand and silt carried by underground streams, and some the result of chemical deposition in the cavern void space such as calcite and gypsum speleothems. Textbooks on karst hydrology commonly provide descriptions and overall classifications of cave sediments (e.g. Bogli,... 

Logsdon River has been explored upstream from the confluence for more than seven kilometers. It more or less parallels the escarpment at the southern edge of the Mammoth Cave Plateau and is a master drain for the karst as far northeast as Roppel Cave. It is known to receive recharge from valley drains and vertical shafts and also from the sinking streams and sinkhole inputs on the Sinkhole Plain to the southeast. The Logsdon River sediments are mainly silts and fine sands with 40 - 60% of the material smaller than the smallest sieve size used. 

Pickle, J.D., 1985, Dynamics of clastic sedimentation and watershed evolution within a low-relief karst drainage basin. Mammoth Cave Region, Kentucky, MS Thesis, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 147 pp. 

Quinlan, J.F. and Ewers, R.O., 1989, Subsurface drainage in the Mammoth Cave Area, Chap. 3 in Karst Hydrology - Concepts from the Mammoth Cave Area, W.B. White and E.L. White, eds.. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, pp. 65-103. 

Thus the development of the lowest epiphreatic cave level may have been contemporaneous with or pre-date the sediment deposition. This indicates that even the lowest cave level (and the river terrace with which it is correlated) formed in the mid-Pleistocene, or earlier. The sea level and climatic fluctuations of the late Pleistocene, responsible for the bulk of Northern Hemisphere karst geomorphology, have left little discernible trace in the Buchan area (Webb et al., 1992). 

The present study indicates clearly the principle of "karst immunity" (Jennings 1985), whereby caves often contain information that is lacking or less clearly expressed in non-limestone terrains. This conforms the utility of the study of caves and their contents to studies of landscape evolution and palaeoclimatology. 

Webb, J. A., Fabel, D., Finlayson, B. L., Ellaway, M., Li Shu, and Spiertz, H.-P., 1992, Denudation chronology from cave and river terrace levels the case of the Buchan Karst, southeastern Australia, Geol. Mag. 129 307-317. 

---