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Abstract:
THE ATLANTIC ATLAS (MOROCCO): A DISTINCTLY KARSTIC REGION - The Atlantic Atlas is a semiarid mountain, which owes to its proximity of the ocean a winter moisture above 1000 m, with watersheets and at times perennial flows. The main karstic landforms are however inherited of damper tertiary and quaternary periods. These forms were developed in relation to particular structural conditions, because the Atlantic Atlas uplifted during a tertiary orogenesis, which folded the sedimentary jurassic and cretaceous material of an atlantic basin (basin of the Haha). Among the most original results of this evolution, we can find curious tower-like lands-cape of dolomitic high-plateaus, numerous cylindrical pits (ouggar), lines of funnel-shaped dolines (ouddirh) and underground karstic river systems, the longest in North-Africa known to day. On the greater part of the Maha Plateau, remnants of an ancient karstification are masked by plio-moghrebian deposits. The latter are also full of dolines and poljes. In the same way, littoral karstic forms and calcareous deposits (calcrests and travertines) show the continuation of limestone dissolution.