Karst Processes and Landforms

South China
Karst landforms are produced by weathering and erosion in regions of carbonate
rocks and evaporites. The processes involved are collectively described as
karstification, and happened mainly below the ground surface.
Karst found mostly in limestone (rock with at least 50% carbonate minerals),
depends on:

1) permeability & porosity
2) secondary porosity along fractures, joints, faults, etc
3) bedding thickness
4) available relief

Surficial Landforms
1) Closed depressions - dolines/sinks/sinkholes; solutional collapse: uvalas & poljes:
2) Karst valleys - allogenic valleys; blind valley; pocket valley; dry valleys
3) Minor solution features: karren

Surficial Landforms
1) Closed depressions - dolines/sinks/sinkholes; solutional collapse: uvalas & poljes

Doline: A general term for a closed depression in an area of karst
topography that is formed either by solution of the surficial limestone or
by collapse of underlying caves.
Surficial Landforms
1) Closed depressions - dolines/sinks/sinkholes; solutional collapse: uvalas & poljes

Doline: A general term for a closed depression in an area of karst
topography that is formed either by solution of the surficial limestone or
by collapse of underlying caves.
Surficial Landforms
1) Closed depressions - dolines/sinks/sinkholes; solutional collapse: uvalas & poljes

Doline
Surficial Landforms
1) Closed depressions - dolines/sinks/sinkholes; solutional collapse: uvalas & poljes

Doline
Surficial Landforms
1) Closed depressions - dolines/sinks/sinkholes; solutional collapse: uvalas & poljes

An uvala is a collection of multiple smaller individual sinkholes that
coalesce into a compound sinkhole. These landforms are often shallow
and irregular in their overall shape, due to the merging of smaller
sinkholes.
Surficial Landforms
1) Closed depressions - dolines/sinks/sinkholes; solutional collapse: uvalas & poljes

A poljes is an elongated basin having a flat floor and steep walls, formed
the coalescence of several sinkholes
Surficial Landforms
2) Karst valleys - allogenic valleys; pocket valley; dry valleys
Allogenic valley is a karst valley incised by a watercourse originating on
impervious rock with a volume sufficient for it to traverse a limestone area on
the surface. The valley is incised from the limestone contact and with the
passage of time the river is increasingly likely to pass underground as the
waters enlarge joints.
Surficial Landforms
2) Karst valleys - allogenic valleys; blind valley; dry valleys
Blind valley is a deep, narrow, flat bottomed valley with an abrupt ending. Such
valleys arise in karst landscapes, where a layer of permeable rock lies above an
impermeable substrate. They are created by a stream flowing within the
permeable rock and eroding it from within, until the rock above collapses
opening up a steep narrow valley which is then further eroded by the stream
running across the impermeable valley floor.
Surficial Landforms
2) Karst valleys - allogenic valleys; blind valley; dry valleys
Dry valley is a valley found in no longer has a surface flow of water because the
water sinks through the limestone and flows underground in caverns .

Surficial Landforms
3) Minor solution features:
Karren are minor forms of karst due to solution of rock on its surface.
Subsurface Features/Landforms

Caves form by the dissolution of limestone. Rainwater
picks up carbon dioxide from the air, and more especially
from the soil (where micro-organisms and the decay of
organic matter generate high levels of carbon dioxide),
combining to form carbonic acid. As this acidic water
percolates through the limestone, it gradually enlarges
the bedding planes, joints and fissures within the rock,
eventually creating caves.
Underground water flow

Water flowing though the limestone will follow the line of least resistance, which generally
means along bedding planes, joints and fault lines. Over time, the water generally enlarges
the major joints and bedding planes within the rock to form a cave. Local geology has an
important role to play in determining the style and type of cave formed.
Phreatic: below
groundwater table
(saturated).








Vadose zone): surface to
top of groundwater
(Unsaturated).
Cave Deposits

Once cave has been formed, it may become partially or totally infilled with cave deposits.
Two major types of deposit are stalactites and stalagmites (speleothems).

Once percolating water reaches the underlying cave
atmosphere, which has generally lower levels of carbon
dioxide, it degasses and by doing so, becomes supersaturated
with calcium carbonate, which is deposited as speleothem. A
variety of different types of speleothem can develop, but the
majority are composed of calcite. Near the entrances to many
caves, evaporation of the drip waters can enhance stalagmite
deposition, which is why many of the caves are almost choked
by calcite near their entrances.
Cave Deposits

Once cave has been formed, it may become partially or totally infilled with cave deposits.
Two major types of deposit are stalactites and stalagmites (speleothems).

Once percolating water reaches the
underlying cave atmosphere, which has
generally lower levels of carbon dioxide, it
degasses and by doing so, becomes
supersaturated with calcium carbonate,
which is deposited as speleothem. A variety
of different types of speleothem can develop,
but the majority are composed of calcite.
Near the entrances to many caves,
evaporation of the drip waters can enhance
stalagmite deposition, which is why many of
the caves are almost choked by calcite near
their entrances.

Cave sediments

Many caves have thick deposits of a coarse gravels, or thick deposits of silt and
laminated clays, with climate having a big effect on the amount of sediment in
transport. In todays warm, wet interglacial climates, hillsides are often rapidly
eroding, washing much sediment that makes its way into cave systems.
Speleothem
18O records


The relative age of a cave deposits
sometimes measured by
palaeomagnetic analysis. Through time,
the Earths magnetic north pole has
wandered around by several degrees,
periodically flipping from north to south
and back again. These fluctuations in the
magnetic field have been independently
dated using other methods. The last time
the magnetic pole reversed was 780,000
years ago, and before that, about
910,000 years ago. These changes in the
Earths magnetic field are recorded in the
sediments found throughout the caves.
Clay particles deposited in still water will preferentially align themselves to the prevailing
magnetic field at the time of deposition. Thus by taking carefully oriented cores of fine
grained, clay rich sediment, it is possible using a magnetometer to determine the
direction (and thus polarity) of the magnetic pole when the sediment was deposited. The
most recent sediments will be aligned towards the current North Pole, whereas older
sediments preserve will preserve evidence of former pole positions.
Tower karst
Tropical Karst
all temperate landforms are present, but the landscape is dominated by
residual hills rather than the closed depressions of temperate karst
higher temperature, total precipitation, & precipitation intensity produce
rapid & prolonged corrosion
rapid plant growth & decay combine with extreme microbial activity to
supercharge infiltrating water with CO2 and intensify the solution process
cone karst, tower karst, phytokarst
Tropical Karst
Cone karst or kegelkarst (conical hill karst), this is a landscape
of star-shaped hollows surrounded by steep, rounded hills,
and found in tropical karst country. The cockpits, now floored
with alluvium, are the hollows, or dolines, formed by the
solution of limestone. They can be 100m deep and usually
contain a streamsink. The classic area of cockpit karst is found
in Jamaica.
Tropical Karst
Cone karst or kegelkarst
Tropical Karst
Cone karst
Tower karst are steep or vertical sided limestone towers each 30-300 m
high. Towers originate as residual cones and are then steepened by water
table undercutting from surround alluviated plains.
By far the most extensive and
best developed tower karst is
the Guangxi province of
southern China





Many towers are riddled with
relict caves at high levels, and
with active caves through their
bases.
Tropical Karst
Cone karst
Tower karst
Tropical Karst
Cone karst
Cockpits
Tower karst
Phytokarst a type of small scale solutional sculpturing or karren which
forms with the assistance of certain algae and other micro-organisms.
Filamentous algae bore their way into limestone to produce black-coated,
jagged pinnacles marked by delicate, lacy dissection that lacks any
gravitational orientation.

Cave management (or mismanagment)