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Abstract:
A geomorphological study of the east coast of Andros (Fresh Creek area) shows the existence of a paleotopography represented by low-altitude hills (few metres). This paleotopography is protected by the presence of a calcitic Quaternary crust which covers Pleistocene calcarenite.In the western part of the area, there are long woody axes, oriented NE-SW, parallel to the channels of the creek. They end at two kilometres from the coast, along which is a second kind of lower hills, orthogonal to the first.The first axes can be interpreted as megaripples as seen at the present time on modern deposits (on the Great Bahama Bank) and fossilized by the upper crust. The second direction is made by accretion ripples along the coast.The surface of the Bahamian calcarenite has been studied. The Bahamian karst presents two topographical forms: “blue holes” like those outside the island, which are 60-80 m in diameter and both sparse and deep; and “washtub” dolines; these are numerous and shallow, and, from low altitude, exhibit a honeycombed aspect on the surface. This karstic topography with dolines and blue holes is also seen through the water of the Creek the hard bottom of which is covered only here and there with a few centimetres of sediments. Hence, there is a submerged karstic topography, made of the same elements as the aerial karst, but submerged by the Holocene transgression. The present karstic relief, in relation with the different eustatic levels of the Quaternary, has begun 120,000 years ago, according to the isotopic ages, and might be composed by different steps, difficult to show now, in the topography.The blue holes in the interior of the island of young and little evolved karst, were formed more by solution than by collapse of the karstic caves, because of the absence of a real river to drain the Andros shelf at the time of low sea levels. Blue holes of the inside of the island, as they are called, with submarine openings, have the same salinity as the water of the creek (17.5 g/l). The dolines with very low salinity (0.7 g/l to 3.8 g/l) are filled with stromatolites and charophytes, slowly forming sediments made up essentially of high-magnesian calcite.It seems that the Andros Island karst can be compared with that of the Yucatan, where there are round and deep open pits, called cenote, of which the Bahamian equivalent would be the blue holes which were drowned by the Holocene transgression.ResumeSur l'ile Andros, zone emergee du Grand Banc de Bahama, l'auteur montre l'existence d'une paleotopographie comprenant deux categories de rides d'orientation differente et semblant fossilisee par une croute calcitique recente et l'existence d'un karst aux formes jeunes, bien qu'heritage d'un karst holocene en voie de submersion. Ces formes sont des “blue holes” ou trous bleus circulaires (60 a 80 m de diametre) et peu nombreux, et des dolines, dites en baquet. Dans ces dolines se deposent actuellement des croutes stromatolithiques calcitiques dont l'etude est faite par diffractometrie de rayons X et microscopie electronique a balayage