Cave Geology - Calcite, Karst, Rock Shelter, Montmorillonite, Cenote, List of Important Publications in Geology, Grotto, Lava Tube, Pit Cave (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 23. Chapters: Calcite, Karst, Rock shelter, Montmorillonite, Cenote, List of important publications in geology, Grotto, Lava tube, Pit cave, Aragonite, The Great Stalacpipe Organ, Hydromagnesite, Blue hole, Spar, Vadose zone, Phreatic, Kieselkalk, Blowhole, Suffosion, Speleogen, Brushite, Speleogenesis, Bashful elephant, Estavelle, Anchihaline caves. Excerpt: Karst topography is a geologic formation shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite, but has also been documented for weathering resistant rocks like quartzite given the right conditions. Due to subterranean drainage, there may be very limited surface water, even to the absence of all rivers and lakes. Many karst regions display distinctive surface features, with sinkholes or dolines being the most common. However, distinctive karst surface features may be completely absent where the soluble rock is mantled, such as by glacial debris, or confined by a superimposed non-soluble rock strata. Some karst regions include thousands of caves, even though evidence of caves that are big enough for human exploration is not a required characteristic of karst. Doline in the causse de Sauveterre, Loz re, France.Karst topography is characterized by subterranean limestone caverns, carved by groundwater. The geographer Jovan Cviji (1865-1927) was born in western Serbia and studied widely in the Dinaric Kras region. His publication of Das Karstph nomen (1893) established that rock dissolution was the key process and that it created most types of dolines, "the diagnostic karst landforms." The Dinaric Kras thus became the type area for dissolutional landforms and aquifers; the regional name kras, Germanicised as "karst," is now applied to modern and paleo-dissolutional phenomena worldwide. Cviji related the complex b...