cave

—cavelike, adj.

/kayv/, n., v., caved, caving.

n.

1. a hollow in the earth, esp. one opening more or less horizontally into a hill, mountain, etc.

2. a storage cellar, esp. for wine.

3. Eng. Hist. a secession, or a group of seceders, from a political party on some special question.

v.t.

4. to hollow out.

5. Mining.

a. to cause (overlying material) to fall into a stope, sublevel, or the like.

b. to cause (supports, as stulls or sets) to collapse beneath overlying material.

c. to fill (a stope or the like) with caved-in material: sub-level caving.

v.i.

6. to cave in.

7. cave in,

a. to fall in; collapse.

b. to cause to fall in or collapse.

c. Informal. to yield; submit; surrender: The opposition caved in before our superior arguments.

[1175-1225; ME < OF < LL cava (fem. sing.), L cava, neut. pl. of cavum hole, n. use of neut. of cavus hollow]

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I

Naturally formed underground cavity.

A cave often consists of a number of underground chambers, constituting a series of caverns. An assemblage of such caverns interconnected by smaller passageways makes up a cave system. Primary caves, such as lava tubes and coral caves, develop during the time when the host matrix is solidifying or being deposited. Secondary caves, such as marine grottoes, originate after the host matrix has been deposited or consolidated. Most caves are of the latter type, including solution caves formed by the chemical dissolution of a soluble host rock that has been weakened by fracturing and mechanical erosion; Mammoth Cave and Carlsbad Caverns are examples of solution caves.

II

(as used in expressions)

Jewel Cave National Monument

Mammoth Cave National Park

Russell Cave National Monument

Timpanogos Cave National Monument

Wind Cave National Park

Longmen caves

Lung men caves

Oregon Caves National Monument

Yungang caves

Yün kang caves

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Introduction

also called  cavern 

   natural opening in the Earth large enough for human exploration. Such a cavity is formed in many types of rock and by many processes. The largest and most common caves are those formed by chemical reaction between circulating groundwater and bedrock composed of limestone or dolomite (see video—>). These caves, called solution caves, typically constitute a component of what is known as karst terrain. Named after the Karst region of the western Balkan Peninsula extending from Slovenia to Montenegro, karst terrain in general is characterized by a rough and jumbled landscape of bare bedrock ledges, deranged surface drainage, and sinkholes, as well as caves. It should be noted, however, that there is considerable variation among karst areas. Some may have dramatic surface landforms but few caves. By contrast, others may have extensive cave development with little surface expression; for example, the Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico, the site of Carlsbad Caverns and various other caves, have very few surface karst features.

      Karst landscapes are formed by the removal of bedrock (composed in most cases of limestone, dolomite, gypsum, or salt, but in some cases of such normally insoluble rocks as quartzite and granite) in solution through underground routes rather than through surface weathering and surface streams. As a result, much karst drainage is internal. Rainfall flows into closed depressions and down their drains. Further dissolution in the subsurface forms continuous conduits that serve as integrated drains for the rapid movement of underground water. The outlets for the water-carrying conduits often are springs of majestic size. Caves are fragments of such conduit systems, and some of them provide access to active streams. These caves may be completely water-filled; others are dry passages left behind by streams that cut to lower levels. Surface streams flowing from areas underlain by insoluble rock often sink when they reach the border of a karst region. These sinking streams form tributaries of the underground drainage system.

Cave types

 Not all caves are part of karst landscapes. A substantial number of relatively small caves, called volcanic caves, are formed in lava and by the mechanical movement of bedrock. Other caves are formed in glaciers by the melting of ice. Still others are created by the erosive action of water and wind or from the debris of erosive processes; these are sea caves, eolian caves, rock shelters, and talus caves.

Glacier caves

      These are long tunnels formed near the snouts of glaciers between the glacial ice and the underlying bedrock. Meltwater from the surface of a glacier drains downward through crevasses, which are enlarged to form shafts leading to the base of the glacier. Because the inlet water is slightly above the melting point of ice, it gradually melts the ice as it seeps along the base of the glacier.

      Glacier caves may reach lengths of several kilometres. Mature caves of this sort are tubular conduits, often with intricately sculptured walls. Some of them have a branching pattern. The floors of glacier caves usually consist of rock. Most glacier caves can be explored only when the surface is frozen; at other times they are filled with water.

Sea caves (sea cave), eolian caves, rock shelters, and talus caves

      Sea caves are formed by wave action on fractures or other weaknesses in the bedrock of sea cliffs along coastlines. They may be mere crevices in the cliff or roomy chambers. Some can be entered only by boat at low tide, while others, occurring along beaches, can be walked into. A sea cave may have an opening to the surface at its rear that provides access from the top of the cliff. In some cases, the ceiling entrance serves as a blowhole from which water spouts during times of high tide or rough seas. Sea caves rarely are more than a few hundred metres long.

      Eolian caves are chambers scoured by wind action. They are common in desert areas where they are formed in massive sandstone cliffs. Wind sweeping around such a cavity erodes the walls, floor, and ceiling, resulting in a bottle-shaped chamber usually of greater diameter than the entrance. Eolian caves are rarely longer than a few tens of metres.

      Rock shelters are produced by bedrock erosion in insoluble rocks. A common setting is where a resistant rock such as a sandstone overlies shale or some other relatively weak rock. Surface weathering or stream action wears away the shale, cutting it back into the hillside. The sandstone is left behind as a roof to the rock shelter. Rock shelters are minor features as caves, but many are important archaeological or historical sites.

      Talus caves are openings formed between boulders piled up on mountain slopes. Most of them are very small both in length and in cross section. Some boulder piles, however, do have explorable interconnected “passages” of considerable length. Some of the largest talus caves occur among granite blocks in New York and New England, where integrated systems of passages between boulders have been mapped to lengths of several kilometres.

Solution caves

  As previously noted, the largest and most common caves are those formed by dissolution of limestone or dolomite. Limestone is composed mostly of calcium carbonate in the form of the mineral calcite. Dolomite rock consists of calcium magnesium carbonate, the mineral dolomite. Both these carbonate minerals are somewhat soluble in the weak acids formed by carbon dioxide dissolving in groundwater. Water seeping through soils into the bedrock, water collected by sinkholes, and surface streams sinking underground at the margins of karst areas all percolate along fractures in the bedrock and gradually create sizable passages by chemical action. Because the dissolution process takes place deep in the bedrock, it is not necessary that solution caves have entrances. Most entrances are formed by accidental processes such as the downcutting of surface valleys, the collapse of sinkholes, or the emplacement of quarries or road cuts. Accidental processes of passage collapse and passage plugging divide caves into smaller fragments. Because of this, there are many more small caves than large ones. The longest known cave is the Mammoth Cave–Flint (Mammoth Cave National Park) Ridge system in south central Kentucky, which has a surveyed length of more than 345 miles (555 km).

      Most solution caves form at relatively shallow depths (from a few tens of metres to 1,000 metres) by the action of water rich in carbonic acid (H₂CO₃) derived from recent rainfall. Some solution caves, however, appear to have been formed by deep-seated waters such as oil field brines. Sources of acid other than carbonic acid (e.g., sulfuric acid from the oxidation of sulfide minerals or the oxidation of hydrogen sulfide-bearing fluids) may be the dissolving agent for such caves. According to some investigators, Carlsbad Caverns originated from dissolution with sulfuric acid.

       gypsum rock, composed primarily of calcium sulfate dihydrate (the mineral gypsum), is more soluble than limestone. Outcrops of gypsum rock are found at the land surface in arid regions such as West Texas, western Oklahoma, and eastern New Mexico. Caves formed by the dissolution of gypsum are much like limestone caves in the size, shape, and pattern of their passages. The Optimisticheskaya Cave in Ukraine is the world's longest gypsum cave, with 165 kilometres of passage.

      Caves also are formed by the dissolution of salt (the mineral halite). Because it is highly soluble in water, salt outcrops at the land surface only in extremely arid regions. Caves in salt closely resemble limestone caves in passage plan and shape. In most cases, salt caves are small, with passage lengths ranging from a few tens of metres to several hundred metres. Good examples of salt caves occur in Mount Sedom in Israel and in eastern Spain.

Evolution and demise of solution caves

      Compared with most geologic phenomena, caves are transient features of the landscape. They form, evolve, and are destroyed over periods of time ranging from a few tens of thousands to a few million years. It is possible to sketch the “life history” of a single cave passage as the sequence from an initiation phase, a series of three critical thresholds, an enlargement phase, a stagnation phase, and a decay phase.

Initiation phase

      Since limestone is an impermeable rock, groundwater moves mainly through mechanical fractures—joint and bedding-plane partings. Because groundwater seeps (seepage) slowly through these openings, it becomes nearly saturated with dissolved calcium carbonate, particularly deep in the rock mass. As a result, the ability of the water to further dissolve the limestone is limited, and the fractures thus enlarge very slowly. Calculations show that times on the order of 3,000 to 10,000 years are needed to enlarge a fracture from an initial width of 10 to 50 micrometres to pencil-sized openings five to 10 millimetres wide. When a continuous pathway from the water source to the outlet has been enlarged to five to 10 millimetres width, the initiation phase is complete.

      The five- to 10-millimetre size of the enlarging fracture marks a set of thresholds where new processes come into play. The slow, percolating flow of water is accelerated as the conduit becomes larger, and at the threshold size turbulence appears in the flowing water. The flow pattern is less like percolation through an aquifer and more like flow in a pipe. At the threshold size the opening is large enough and the flow velocities high enough that insoluble sediments can be transported. For the complete development of an underground drainage system, it is necessary that the water-carrying conduits also flush out the soil that washes in through sinkholes, the sediment load of sinking streams, and the insoluble weathering products from the dissolution of the limestone. Another threshold has to do with the rate at which the limestone is dissolved. During the initiation phase when flow velocities are low and the water is nearly saturated, the rate at which limestone is removed is very slow. As velocities increase, unsaturated water moves deep into the bedrock, and the rate of dissolution is greatly increased. The pencil-sized threshold opening marks the boundary between the initial fracture system and the evolving conduit system.

Enlargement phase

      Once a complete pathway has been opened to threshold size, enlargement takes place rapidly as the conduit provides an efficient route for groundwater flow. Enlargement from threshold size to a full-scale cave passage of one to three metres in diameter can be accomplished in 10,000 to 100,000 years, depending on local geology. During the enlargement phase, the conduit may become completely water-filled, in which case the growing passage takes the form of a circular or elliptical conduit as dissolution acts uniformly on the floor, walls, and ceiling. If the water source feeding the conduit is limited, a time will come when there is not enough water to fill the passage. A free air surface then develops and the dissolution of the ceiling will cease, even though the passage will continue to enlarge through dissolution of the lower walls and floor. This transition from pipe flow to open-channel flow results in a change in passage shape from that of an elliptical tube to that of a canyon. Continued solutional erosion causes the canyon to deepen, resulting in canyon passages 30 to 50 metres high and only one metre or less wide.

      The fate of a cave passage at the end of the enlargement stage depends on what has been happening elsewhere on the land surface and in the drainage basin. If the passage lies deep below the water table, enlargement will continue until the passage becomes too wide for the ceiling bedrock to support its own weight, and the passage will ultimately collapse. During the time that the cave passage has been enlarging, surface streams have been downcutting their beds, and the position of base level and the water table is lowered. If the original water source continues to flow through the cave after the transition to canyon shape, the underground canyon can continue to deepen, keeping its gradient adjusted to the lowering surface streams. Sometimes, however, the conduit passages are simply abandoned. Veneers of insoluble sediment that accumulate on the floors of cave passages tend to protect them from solution. As surface streams downcut, the conduits are left behind and the increased hydraulic gradient causes new passages to form at lower levels. In due course, the flow is completely diverted into these new passages, and the original passages remain air-filled and dry above the descending water table.

Stagnation and decay phases

      Segments of cave passage abandoned as surface streams downcut can survive for a long time in a stage of stagnation. Truncation of the passages by valley downcutting produces entrances. Caves in the stagnation phase are those most frequently discovered and explored by humans.

      Surface erosion continues to dissect the landscape, and hilltops and plateaus are lowered. The underlying cave passages are cut into smaller and smaller fragments. Eventually the denudation of the land surface destroys the last vestiges of the passages, bringing to an end the long history of the cave conduit.

      The time scales for the stagnation and decay stages are highly variable, depending on local geologic conditions. Paleomagnetic measurements of the sediments in Mammoth Cave show that the passages at the highest elevations are at least 2,000,000 years old. Studies based on rates of surface weathering in the Appalachian valleys of Pennsylvania indicate that caves at the highest elevation in the residual hills may be 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 years old.

      Larger cave systems often have complex patterns of superimposed passages that represent a long history of cave development. The oldest passages, usually but not necessarily those at the highest elevations, may have formed before the glaciations of the Quaternary. The youngest passages may be part of an integrated subsurface drainage system that exists today.

Geomorphic characteristics of solution caves

      Like many other geologic features concealed beneath the earth, caves are difficult to observe. One cannot really see a cave, even though one may have a point-by-point, cross-sectional view as the cave passage is illuminated during exploration. The horizontal ground plans and vertical profiles of caves must be represented by maps. These in turn are constructed from arduous station-to-station surveys by cave explorers.

      Some cave-passage plans take the shape of linear, angulate, or sinuous segments of conduit. These are segments of drainage trunk without tributaries. Other cave-passage plans are branchworks. There may be a well-defined “upstream” direction, with tributary passages joining the trunk. Still other passage plans are networks in which passages are laid out in a “city-block” pattern with many intersecting passages and many closed loops. In terms of flow pattern, a single-conduit type of cave forms where much of the original catchment area was on non-karstic borderlands and the sinking stream injected large quantities of water at a single point. Branchwork caves develop where there are multiple inlets, each at the head of one of the tributary branches. Network caves are formed where flows are controlled by diffuse inlets; flow velocities remain low and solutional erosion takes place along all possible joint openings. A network cave is the underground equivalent of a swamp.

      Passage cross-sectional shapes reflect the way the water flowed through the cave and the way in which the water dissolved the bedrock. Passages that formed while completely flooded are dissolved away equally on walls, ceilings, and floors. The result is an elliptical tube. In contrast, a flowing stream with a free air surface can dissolve limestone only in its bed. The result is a canyon-shaped passage. In some caves of this type, the walls are nearly vertical and may measure 30 to 50 metres high, even though the passage may only be one metre wide. Other cave passages are very irregular because of the meanderings of the downcutting stream. There is always competition between the hydraulics of flowing water that works to shape passages into smooth, streamlined forms and the control of passage shape by the structural arrangement of joints, fractures, and bedding-plane partings that initiated the passageway. Joint-controlled passages may be high and narrow, sometimes with irregular walls; such a configuration resulted as the passages were enlarged from the initial joint by slowly percolating water. Passages developed primarily along bedding-plane partings may be low and wide. In general, higher flow velocities favour the hydraulic forms, and slow, percolating flows tend to preserve the shapes of the initial mechanical openings.

      Most passages of solution caves are nearly horizontal with gentle average slopes toward the outlet springs. If the caves were formed by pressure flow beneath the water table, the passage profile can be irregular, with both downsloping and upsloping segments. Most cave passages are not graded like surface streams. Only in some alpine environments do caves form with steeply sloping passages. Continuous lowering of the level of groundwater circulation often produces tiers of passages stacked one on top of the other, and these need not be interconnected by an explorable cave. Additional mechanisms are needed to explain the vertical arrangement of some caves that may have an internal relief from tens of metres to more than 1,000 metres. Vertical integration is accomplished by some combination of the following: (1) primary vertical solution in the unsaturated zone above the water table during the same time as conduit dissolution below the water table, (2) dissolution of vertical shafts and solution chimneys (see below) in the unsaturated zone at some time after the development of the conduits, or (3) interconnection of existing dry passages by processes of breakdown and collapse.

      Caves in regions of high relief are frequently developed by inputs of water that move by predominantly vertical paths through the unsaturated zone. Such caves often have a stair-step pattern, with vertical pits and shafts offset by short reaches of horizontal passage. Steeply sloping streamways are common. Some caves of the unsaturated zone are simply pits tens to hundreds of metres deep, which show little horizontal development. Others make up complicated cave systems in which many vertical infeeders join to form master streams that descend to base level as waterfalls plunging down pits. One of the largest such systems is the group of caves on the Huautla Plateau in Mexico. The greatest relief from the highest known entrance of the Sistema Huautla to the lowest point of exploration is 1,252 metres in a cave measuring 33.8 kilometres long.

      Some conduit systems such as those of the Mammoth Cave area and of the Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains develop beneath a protective cap of sandstone, shale, and other relatively non-soluble rocks. As the caprock erodes, the underlying limestone is exposed to the runoff water that drains from the remaining area of the plateau. Such runoff water dissolves away the limestone in the unsaturated zone to form solution chimneys and vertical shafts. Solution chimneys develop along vertical fractures or along bedding planes of vertically bedded limestones. In cross section, they tend to be irregular and elongated along the controlling fracture or bedding plane. Solution chimneys follow the fracture and may be offset or descend at steep angles, depending on the pitch of the guiding fracture. Vertical shafts, by contrast, are controlled by the hydraulic forces of freely flowing water. They are often nearly perfect cylinders with circular cross sections. The walls are vertical and cut across the limestone beds with complete disregard for angle or composition of the beds. Vertical shafts and solution chimneys have no direct relation to the conduit system, especially not to the upper dry levels of the system. They sometimes are connected to present-day active horizontal conduits by drain passages. These drains usually are of small cross section and may extend from hundreds of metres or even several kilometres before connecting with the main drainage conduits. In the unsaturated zone, vertical shafts tend to shear through high-level passages as though they were not there. When vertical shafts and solution chimneys cut through several tiers of overlying horizontal passage, they provide pathways for exploration and integrate the cave system.

      Cave roofs are always in a state of stress. The weight of the ceiling beds causes them to sag slightly, separating the beds along the weaker bedding planes. Each ceiling bed becomes, in effect, a fixed beam spanning the width of the cave passage. There is a strict mechanical relationship between the thickness of a beam, its density, and the width of the span. When the width of the span exceeds a certain critical value, the cave ceiling will collapse under its own weight. Processes such as solution along vertical joints cut the ceiling beams, turning them into cantilevers that have much smaller critical loads. When one ceiling bed falls, support is removed from the bed above and it also may fall. There is thus a process of upward stoping due to ceiling collapse. Upward breakdown and collapse can cause one passage to migrate up into an overlying one.

Solution cave features

Solutional sculpturings

      Superimposed on the walls of cave passages are many small solutional sculpturings that record further details of water flow. Pockets of various sizes and kinds are cut back into the walls and ceiling. Some of these have ax-blade shapes and form where water seeping into the cave passage is mixed with the water already in the passage. If the seepage water and the passage water have the correct chemistry, corrosive water forms in the mixing zone and dissolves away the joint-controlled wall and ceiling pockets. Other wall and ceiling pockets are rounded kettle holes or circular cylinders that extend into the solid bedrock of the ceiling with no obvious influence from joints. The ceilings of tropical caves often contain large numbers of the cylindrical cavities, which are used as roosting places by bats. Small secondary channels are carved into the floors or ceilings by flowing water. Floor channels provide evidence of the presence of small later-stage streams that occupied the cave passage after it had been drained of its original flow. Ceiling channels are thought to be the result of upward solutional erosion by cave streams that occurred when the main channel was completely filled with clays, sand, and gravel.

      Among the most significant of the solutional sculpturings are the small scooplike depressions known as scallops. Scallops vary in size from a few centimetres to more than one metre. They are asymmetrical in cross section, having a steep wall on the upstream side and a gentler slope on the downstream side. Scallops thus provide information as to the direction of water flow in passages that have been dry for hundreds of thousands of years. The size of a scallop is inversely proportional to the flow velocity of water in the passage. As a consequence, scallops serve not only as paleo-direction indicators but also as paleo-flow meters. Scallops that are a few centimetres wide indicate flow velocities on the order of a few metres per second. The largest scallops, those that are more than one metre wide, indicate flow velocities of a few centimetres per second.

      The flow velocity of conduit water is sufficient to transport clastic sediment through a cave system. The clastic material is derived from borderlands where it is carried into the karst by sinking streams, from overlying sandstone and shale caprock, from surface soils that are washed underground through sinkholes, and from the insoluble residue of the limestone bedrock. Some of these clastic materials are deposited in caves where they remain as clay, silt, and sand on the cave floors. Some drainage systems carry larger cobble- and boulder-sized materials that are often found in cave streambeds. Most caves have undergone several periods of deposition and excavation, and so remnant beds and pockets of sediment have been left high on cave walls and ledges. These sediments contain iron-bearing magnetic particles, which indicate the position of the Earth's magnetic field at the time when the sediments were deposited. The age of the sedimentary deposits can be determined by measuring the paleomagnetic record in cave sediments and correlating it with the established geomagnetic polarity time scale. Using this method, investigators have ascertained that the age of the sediments in Mammoth Cave is more than 2,000,000 years.

Depositional materials and features

      There are three broad categories of sedimentary material found in caves: clastic sediments carried in by streams and infiltrated from the surface; blocks, slabs, and fragments of breakdown derived from the local bedrock; and chemical sediments deposited in the cave by percolating waters. The chemical sediments are the most diverse and are responsible for the decorative beauty of many caves.

      The most common of the secondary chemical sediments is calcite, calcium carbonate. There also occurs a less common form of calcium carbonate, the mineral aragonite. The second most common cave mineral is gypsum, calcium sulfate dihydrate. Other carbonate, sulfate, and oxide minerals are occasionally found in caves as well. Many of these require that the cave be associated with ore deposits or with other special geologic environments. For this reason, of the more than 200 mineral species known to occur in caves, only about 20 are found widely.

      Deposits of cave minerals occur in many forms, their shapes determined by whether they were deposited by dripping, flowing, or seeping water or in standing pools of water. Collectively, these secondary mineral forms are known as speleothems (cave deposit).

  Water emerging from a joint in the cave ceiling hangs for a while as a pendant drop. During this time, a small amount of calcium carbonate is deposited in a ring where the drop is in contact with the ceiling. Then the drop falls, and a new drop takes its place, also depositing a small ring of calcium carbonate. In this manner, an icicle-like speleothem called a stalactite (stalactite and stalagmite) is built up. Stalactites vary in shape from thin strawlike features to massive pendants or drapery-like forms. Stalactites have a central canal that carries water from the feeder joint to the stalactite tip. When the drops fall to the floor of the cave, additional mineral matter is deposited and stalagmites are built up. Stalagmites also take on many forms, from slender broom-handle to mound- and pagoda-like shapes. Stalagmites consist of superimposed caps or layers and do not have a central canal. Stalactites may grow so large that they cannot support their own weight; the broken fragments of large stalactites are sometimes found in caves. Stalagmites are not so restricted and can reach heights of tens of metres. Water flowing along ledges and down walls leaves behind sheets of calcite, which build up a massive deposit known as a flowstone.

      Most flowstone deposits are composed of calcite, though other minerals occasionally are present. The calcite is usually coarsely crystalline, densely packed, and coloured various shades of tan, orange, and brown. Some of the pigment is from iron oxides carried into the deposit by the seepage water, but the more common colouring agent is humic substances derived from overlying soils. Humic substances are the organic products of plant decay, which are also responsible for the brown colour of some soils and for the tealike colour of some swamp and lake waters. Calcite speleothems may be pure white but appear milky because of many tiny inclusions of water within the structure.

      The calcite in speleothems is derived from the overlying limestone near the bedrock/soil interface. Rainwater infiltrating through the soil absorbs carbon dioxide from the carbon dioxide-rich soil and forms a dilute solution of carbonic acid. When this acid water reaches the base of the soil, it reacts with the calcite in the limestone bedrock and takes some of it into solution. The water continues its downward course through narrow joints and fractures in the unsaturated zone with little further chemical reaction. When the water emerges from the cave roof, carbon dioxide is lost into the cave atmosphere and some of the calcium carbonate is precipitated. The infiltrating water acts as a calcite pump, removing it from the top of the bedrock and redepositing it in the cave below.

      Caves provide a very stable environment where temperature and relative humidity may remain constant for thousands of years. The slow growth of crystals (crystal) is not interrupted, and some speleothems have shapes controlled by the forces of crystal growth rather than by the constraints of dripping and flowing water. Speleothems known as helictites are much like stalactites in that they have a central canal and grow in long tubular forms. They twist and turn in all directions, however, and are not guided by the gravitational pull on pendant water drops. Another variety of speleothem, the anthodite, is a radiating cluster of needlelike crystals. Anthodites are usually composed of aragonite, which has a different habit (i.e., shape of individual crystal grains) than the more common variety of calcium carbonate, calcite. Layered bead or corallike forms occur on cave walls, and complex arrangements of crystals are found in cave pools. Pools of water saturated with calcium carbonate have the remarkable property of surrounding themselves with rimstone dams of precipitated calcite.

      Gypsum and other more water soluble sulfate minerals such as epsomite (magnesium sulfate heptahydrate) and mirabilite (sodium sulfate decahydrate) grow from seepage waters in dry caves. Deposition of the sulfate minerals is due to evaporation of the mineral-bearing solutions. These minerals occur as crusts and in the form of radiating, curving masses of fibrous crystals known as gypsum flowers. Because of their higher solubility, sulfate minerals either do not occur or are destroyed in damp or wet caves.

karst topography

      As previously noted, karst landscapes owe their existence to the removal of bedrock in solution and to the development of underground drainage without the development of surface stream valleys. Within these broad constraints, karst landscapes show much variation and are usually described in terms of a dominant landform. Most important with respect to worldwide occurrence are fluviokarst, doline karst, cone and tower karst, and pavement karst.

Fluviokarst

      In this type of karst landscape, the pattern of surface stream channels and stream valleys are still in evidence, though much of the drainage may be underground. Tributary surface streams may sink underground, and there may be streambeds that carry water only during seasons of high flow or during extreme floods. In addition, the floors of the valleys may be dissected into a sequence of sinkholes.

      Consider a normal stream valley that gradually deepens its channel until it cuts into underlying beds of limestone (or dolomite). As the valley cuts deeper and deeper into the carbonate rocks, the stream that flows through it loses water into the limestone through joints and fractures, which begin to enlarge into cave systems. At first, the cave passages will be very small and capable of carrying only a small amount of water. The stream flow on the surface will be reduced but not eliminated. As time passes, the cave passages become larger and capable of carrying more water. There will come a time when they are large enough to take the entire flow of the surface stream during periods of low flow, and during these low-flow periods—typically during summer and fall—the surface stream will run dry. With the passage of more time the cave system continues to enlarge, and more and more of the surface drainage is directed into it. The caves may become large enough to carry even the largest flood flows, and the surface channels will remain dry all year. The surface at this stage is called a dry valley, and it is no longer deepened because no more streams flow through it. Stream banks collapse, channels become overgrown with vegetation, and shallow sinkholes begin to form in the valley floor. Upstream from these “swallow holes” where surface streams are lost to the subsurface, the tributary valleys continue to deepen their channels. These evolve into so-called blind valleys (polje), which end where a stream sinks beneath a cliff. At the top of the cliff is the abandoned floor of the dry valley. In short, fluviokarst is a landscape of active stream valleys, dry valleys, blind valleys, and deranged drainage systems. It is a common type of karst landscape where the soluble carbonate rocks are not as thick as the local relief, so that some parts of the landscape are underlain by carbonate rocks and others by such non-soluble rocks as sandstones or shales.

Doline karst

      Such karsts are usually rolling plains that have few surface streams and often no surface valleys. Instead, the landscape is pocked with sinkholes (sinkhole), often tens or hundreds of sinkholes per square kilometre. These sinkholes range from barely discernible shallow swales one to two metres wide to depressions hundreds of metres in depth and one or more kilometres in width. As the sinkholes enlarge, they coalesce to form compound sinks or valley sinks. Some sinkholes form by the dissolution of bedrock at the intersections of joints or fractures. Others result from the collapse of cave roofs, and still others form entirely within the soil. The latter, known as cover collapse sinks and cover subsidence sinks, occur where soils are thick and can be washed into the subsurface by the process of soil piping. Soil loss begins at the bedrock interface. An arched void forms, which migrates upward through the soil until finally the roof collapses abruptly to form the sinkhole. These types of sinkhole constitute a serious land-use problem in karst areas and have been responsible for much property damage when they develop beneath streets, parking lots, houses, and commercial buildings.

Cone and tower karst

      This variety of karst landscape occurs mainly in tropical areas. Thick limestones are divided into blocks by a grid of joints and fractures. Solution produces deep rugged gorges along the joints and fractures, dividing the mass of limestone into isolated blocks. Because the water dissolving the gorges drains to the subsurface, the gorges are not integrated into a valley system. In some localities, the intervening blocks are rounded into closely spaced conical hills (cone karst). In others, the deepening gorges reach a base level and begin to widen. Sufficient widening may create a lower-level plain from which the remnants of the limestone blocks stand out as isolated, near-vertical towers (tower karst). The cones and towers themselves are sculptured by solution, so that the rock surface is covered by jagged pinnacles and often punctuated by pits and crevices.

Pavement karst

      This form of karst develops where bare carbonate rocks are exposed to weathering. The initiation of pavement karst is often due to glaciation, which scrapes off soil and weathered rock material to expose the bare bedrock. Accordingly, pavement karsts occur mainly in high latitudes and alpine regions where glacial activity has been prominent. Solutional weathering of the exposed limestone or dolomite is due both to direct rainfall onto the rock surface and to meltwater derived from winter snowpack.

      Pavement karst is decorated with an array of small landforms created by differential solution. These are collectively known as karren. Karren include solutionally widened joints (kluftkarren, or cleftkarren), small runnels (rinnenkarren, or runnelkarren), small residual pinnacles (spitzkarren, or pinnacle karren), and many other forms.

Geographic distribution of karst terrain

      Approximately 15 percent of the Earth's land surface is karst. The distribution of karst is essentially the same as the distribution of carbonate rocks, which means that karst terrain occurs mostly in the great sedimentary basins of the world. It does not occur in the continental shields underlain by granites and related rocks or in volcanic belts, except in certain islands where massive limestones have been deposited on or around old volcanic cones.

      The most extensive karst area of the United States occurs in the limestones of Mississippian age (about 325,000,000 to 345,000,000 years old) of the Interior Low Plateaus. Mostly doline karst with some fluviokarst is found from southern Indiana south along both the east and west flanks of the broad fold of the Cincinnati Arch through eastern and central Kentucky and into Tennessee. Karst also occurs in the limestones of Ordovician age (about 430,000,000 to 500,000,000 years old) that lie exposed on the inner Bluegrass structural dome in Kentucky and on the Nashville Dome in Tennessee. In south central Kentucky is the Mammoth Cave area with the world's longest known cave and many other large cave systems. The Mississippian karst of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana is quite remarkable because the many long cave systems and large areas of doline karst occur in a layer of limestone slightly more than 150 metres thick. Extensive karst also is developed on the limestones that ring the Ozark Dome in Missouri and northern Arkansas. Large caves and areas of fluviokarst and doline karst are found there.

      Other notable karst regions of eastern North America include the Appalachians (Appalachian Mountains) (specifically the Valley and Ridge and Great Valley provinces as well as the Cumberland and Allegheny plateaus) and Florida, where a raised platform of carbonate rocks has large areas of doline karst and extensive internal drainage through a major limestone aquifer. Bermuda and the Bahama Islands (Bahamas, The) also are underlain by young limestones that are highly “karstified.” Much of this karst was drowned by rises in sea level at the end of the Pleistocene glaciation. Caves containing stalactites and stalagmites are found at depths of tens of metres below present sea level.

      The southwestern United States has very diverse karst regions. For example, West Texas, western Oklahoma, and eastern New Mexico have extensive areas of doline karst in gypsum with many small caves. The Edwards Plateau in south central Texas has a subdued surface karst and numerous small caves. The Capitan reef limestone in southeastern New Mexico contains Carlsbad Caverns and other deep and large volume caves.

      The Rocky Mountains have many small areas of alpine karst in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Montana. These are mostly pavement karst with relatively small caves. The Rockies of Canada contain some of that country's longest and deepest caves as well as extensive areas of alpine karst.

      Some of the most spectacular examples of tropical karst occur in Central America and the Caribbean (West Indies). The islands of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico) are underlain by massive limestones up to 1,000 metres thick. Regions of cone and tower karst have developed in these limestones. The karst of Mexico varies from the streamless, low-relief plain of the Yucatán Peninsula to the high plateaus of the interior with their large dolines and deep vertical caves. Cone and tower karst occurs in the southern part of Mexico and in Belize and Guatemala. Many caves have been reported in Venezuela and Colombia. Little is known of karst in the other countries of South America. Much of the continent is occupied by the Guiana Shield and the Andes Mountains.

      Because of its diversity of geologic and climatic settings, Europe has many different types of karst terrain. In the south the Pyrenees exhibit spectacular alpine karst on both the Spanish and French sides. The high-altitude pavement karst contains many deep shafts. The Pierre Saint-Martin System, for example, is 1,342 metres deep and drains a large area of the mountain range. Southern France, notably the Grande Causse, has some of the most spectacular karst in Europe, with deep gorges, numerous caves, and much sculptured limestone. In the Alps are massive folded and faulted limestones and dolomites that underlie alpine karst terrain from France to the Balkan Peninsula. In France the Vercors Plateau is pavement karst featuring many deep caves, including the Berger Shaft—one of the deepest in Europe. The Hölloch Cave, the world's third longest at 133 kilometres, is found in the Swiss Alps. Individual limestone massifs capped with karst plateaus and abounding with deep caves occur in the Austrian Alps.

      Karst is more of a local affair in northern Europe with relatively small caves in Germany and Scandinavia. Some caves have been formed since the Pleistocene glaciation in Norway, as has some high-latitude pavement karst.

      England and Ireland have extensive karst areas. The karst of Wales contains the longest caves in England, while the Yorkshire karst has complex vertical caves. Many parts of Ireland are underlain by limestone, and an area called the Burren in County Clare has not only the most caves but also some of the most extensive low-altitude pavement karsts.

      Most areas of eastern Europe have karst, but special attention must be paid to the Dinaric Alps along the western edge of the Balkan Peninsula. From Slovenia to Montenegro and from the Adriatic coast 50 kilometres into the interior, the land surface is karst. In addition to areas of fluviokarst, doline karst, and pavement karst, the karst of the Dinaric Alps region is unique for its large number of poljes (polje). These are closed depressions with flat and alluviated bottoms that may be as much as 60 kilometres in diameter. Many of these depressions are elongate parallel to the geologic structure and to the Adriatic coastline. Although isolated poljes have been identified elsewhere, their large numbers in the karst of the Dinaric Alps are attributable to a system of active faults as well as to intense solution activity in nearly 9,000 metres of carbonate rock.

      Much of the Mediterranean region—Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, and parts of the Arabian Peninsula—are arid karst. The region had much more rainfall during the ice ages of the Quaternary, and so karst landscapes developed. Today a combination of arid climatic conditions and overgrazing has reduced many parts of the region to bare rock, an arid-climate form of pavement karst. This is effectively a fossil karst that preserves a record of earlier climatic conditions. The karst regions extend eastward through parts of Iraq to the Zagros Mountains of Iran.

      Relatively little karst has been described in Africa. Deep shafts and many caves occur in the Atlas Mountains in the northern part of the continent. Some caves have been described in Congo (Kinshasa), and caves are known in South Africa where sinkhole collapse in the Transvaal Dolomite owing to dewatering by gold mining has been a serious environmental problem.

       Asia is a vast region where many types of karst occur. In Russia, important karst areas are found in the Caucasus and Ural mountains. There is an important area of gypsum karst in Ukraine, where very large network caves of gypsum occur. Karst covers about 2,000,000 square kilometres in China, but most renowned is the tower karst of Kweichow, Kwangsi, Yunnan, and Hunan provinces. The Chinese tower karst is developed on folded and faulted rocks unlike most other regions of cone and tower karst, which occur on thick horizontal strata. Isolated vertical-walled towers more than 200 metres high are found along river floodplains in those provinces.

      Karst regions occur in the South Pacific. In Australia there are caves and some scattered sinkholes along the Nullarbor Plain. Additional karst areas occur in the eastern part of the continent. Many of the Pacific islands are coral reefs that have become karst to varying extents. Extensive cone and tower karst is found in New Guinea, Java, Borneo, and the Malay Peninsula.

William B. White

Volcanic and tectonic caves

Volcanic caves (lava cave)

      Caves of various types and sizes occur where volcanic rocks are exposed. These are caves formed by flowing lava and by the effects of volcanic gases rather than by dissolution of the bedrock. Because volcanic caves form very close to the land surface, they are easily destroyed by erosional processes. As a result, such caves are usually found only in recent lava flows, those that are less than 20,000,000 years old.

Lava tubes

      These are the longest and most complicated of volcanic caves. They are the channels of rivers of lava that at some earlier time flowed downslope from a volcanic vent or fissure. Lava tubes develop best in highly fluid lava, notably a basaltic type known as pahoehoe. They rarely form in rough, clinkery aa flows or in the more massive block lavas. In pahoehoe flows volatile components remain in solution in the molten rock where they decrease both the rate at which the lava solidifies and its viscosity. Because of this, pahoehoe lava flows like a sticky liquid, sometimes rushing down steep slopes and forming lava falls.

Process of formation

      Near the vent of a volcano, the overflowing lava is directed toward whatever natural channels or gullies are available. As the flow advances downslope, the sides begin to congeal, so that more and more of the flowing lava is confined to a progressively narrowing channel. At this stage, the lava flow behaves like a river moving at relatively high velocity in a narrow canyon. Gradually the surface of the flow becomes crusted over and may also be covered with solid blocks of lava that have been rafted along the flow. As more and more of the surface crusts over, the supply of fluid lava feeding the advancing front of the flow is confined to a roughly cylindrical tube beneath the surface. It is possible in the later stages of crusting to observe the lava river through the few remaining “windows” in the crust.

      The development of a channel that feeds the advancing front of the lava flow represents the initial stage in the formation of a lava tube. The second stage is the draining of the original conduit. If the source of lava is cut off at the vent, the fluid lava in the tube continues to flow and the tube drains. The combustion of gases released from the lava maintains a high temperature, and the walls of the conduit may be fused to a black glaze. The draining of the tube may take place in stages, so that benches or ledges are formed along the walls. Lava dripping from the ceiling congeals to form lava stalactites, while lava dripping onto the floor gives rise to lava stalagmites. The floor of a lava tube often has a ropey pattern parallel to the flow direction, showing how the last dregs of the draining lava were frozen into place. Other features of the moving fluid such as trenchlike channels in the floor, lava falls over ledges, ponded lava, and embedded blocks may also be found frozen in place.

General characteristics

      In their simplest form, lava tube caves are long tunnels of uniform diameter oriented down the slope of the volcano from which they had their origin. Their roofs and walls consist of solidified lava. In some cases, the floor is covered with sand or other unconsolidated material that has been washed into the cave by water. The roof of a lava tube commonly breaks down, and some caves of this type are littered with blocks of fallen ceiling material. Complete collapse of segments of the roof forms “skylights.” When such openings occur at the upper end of a tube, the tube acts as a cold air trap. Many lava tubes contain ice formations—ponded ice as well as icicles and ice stalagmites where seepage water has frozen in the cold air trapped within the tubes. Some of these ice deposits persist far into the summer.

      Lava tubes that have more complicated shapes also occur. Where slopes are gentle, the original lava river may branch into a distributary pattern near the toe. If these are all drained, the remaining tube branches in the downstream direction. New lava flows may override older flows and result in the formation of additional lava tubes on top of existing ones. Sometimes they are connected by younger flows falling through the roof of the older one, thus rejuvenating the older tube. Because most lava flows are thin, lava tubes form near the land surface. Portions of the roof frequently collapse, and the resulting sinkholes provide entrances to the lava tubes. The collapse process also segments the tubes, so that most lava caves have lengths of only a few hundred to a few thousand metres. Often one can line up the individual caves on maps to identify the course of the original tube. Some lava tube caves are found tens of kilometres from the vent where the flow originated.

Other types of lava caves

      Small caves are produced in regions of active volcanism by at least three other processes. These are (1) pressure-ridge caves, (2) spatter cone chambers, and (3) blister caves.

      The solidified crust of pahoehoe flows often buckles from the movement of lava underneath. The buckled crust appears as ridges several metres to a few tens of metres high, elongated perpendicular to the flow. So-called pressure-ridge caves can be formed beneath the ridges by the mechanical lifting of the roof rock. Such cavities typically measure one to two metres in height, have a roughly triangular cross section, and extend several hundred metres in length. Unlike lava tube caves that are oriented along the flow, pressure-ridge caves are oriented perpendicular to the flow.

      Liquid lava can be forced upward through cracks in the congealed surface layers of the flow. When the ejected blobs of liquid freeze and weld together, they form spatter cones. If the lava subsequently drains from the feeder channel, a dome-shaped chamber is formed beneath such a cone. The depths of these spatter cone pits range from several metres to a few tens of metres.

      Trapped steam or other gases can lift layers of lava while it is still in a plastic state to form small blister caves. These cavities consist of dome-shaped chambers somewhat resembling those of spatter cones. They are generally small, ranging from one to a few metres in diameter, but they often occur in great numbers in many lava flows rich in volatile components.

      In the United States lava caves are found chiefly in the Pacific Northwest—northern California, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho—and in Hawaii. One of the longest (measuring 3.4 kilometres) is Ape Cave on the flank of Mount St. Helens in Washington. The cave is located on the side of the volcano opposite that involved in the catastrophic eruption of 1980 and so survived the outburst. Ape Cave is only one fragment of a series of interrelated lava tubes that mark a continuous flow path down the volcano. A large number of lava tubes also occur beneath a nearly flat plain in the Bend region of central Oregon. Many of these are related to fissure eruptions rather than to a single volcanic cone. Lava tubes are commonly found in other young volcanic regions of the world, notably in the Canary Islands, on Iceland, along the East African Rift Valley, and in parts of Australia.

Tectonic caves

      Tectonic caves are formed by a mass movement of the bedrock. The rocks separate along joints or fractures, and are pulled apart mechanically. The resulting cave is usually a high, narrow fissure that has nearly planar walls with matching patterns on opposite sides of the passage. The ceiling is often a flat bed of rock that did not move or that moved along some different fracture. The floor of a tectonic cave may consist of massive bedrock or of a rubble of fallen blocks, or it may be covered with soil and other material washed in from the surface.

      Because tectonic caves are formed by mechanical processes, the most important characteristic of the bedrock is that it be mechanically strong. Massive, brittle rocks such as sandstones and granites are the best host rocks for tectonic caves.

      Although tectonic caves can be formed by any geologic force that causes rocks to move apart, the key mechanism is gravity sliding. The optimum setting for the development of tectonic caves occurs where massive rocks dip gently to the sides of ridges or mountains. The presence of shale layers between beds of massive sandstone can act as a lubricating layer and facilitate mechanical slippage. Gravity causes the massive rocks to slip and separate along vertical fractures, which then become tectonic caves. The amount of slippage must be small for the cave to maintain its roof. Too much slippage and consequent roof collapse will form an open canyon. Still more slippage can result in a landslide.

      Tectonic caves occur in many geologic settings and in great numbers, since they are produced by minor slippages in outcrops of massive sandstones, granites, basalts, and even limestone. Tectonic caves are among the most common caves, but they are rarely noticed or catalogued. They contain few, if any, features that attract attention and usually are quite small. Most such caves measure from several metres to a few hundred metres in length. Many of them consist of a single passage that extends into hillsides along major fractures. Some of the larger tectonic caves have a grid or network pattern that matches the pattern of the fractures or joints.

William B. White

Additional Reading

Two introductory texts are Alfred Bögli, Karst Hydrology and Physical Speleology (1980; originally published in German, 1978), emphasizing caves; and J.N. Jennings, Karst Geomorphology, 2nd rev. ed. (1985), covering both caves and surface landforms—a recommended introduction to karst. Discussion of cave geology, hydrology, mineralogy, and biology can be found in T.D. Ford and C.H.D. Cullingford (eds.), The Science of Speleology (1976), with a good chapter on volcanic caves. Carol A. Hill and Paolo Forti, Cave Minerals of the World (1986), is a systematic description of minerals and speleothems. Paul Courbon and Claude Chabert, Atlas des grandes cavités mondiales (1986), provides a definitive world list of long and deep caves, with maps and descriptive texts. Country-by-country review chapters on karst geology and surface landforms are contained in M. Herak and V.T. Stringfield (eds.), Karst: Important Karst Regions of the Northern Hemisphere (1972), concentrating mostly on Europe, the U.S.S.R., and the United States. M.M. Sweeting, Karst in China (1995), examines the Chinese experience of karst research, focusing on the evaluation and analysis of Chinese research methods.William B. White

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