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Hello everyone!
I pleased to invite you to the official site of Central Asian Karstic-Speleological commission ("Kaspeko")
There, we regularly publish reports about our expeditions, articles and reports on speleotopics, lecture course for instructors, photos etc. ...
Dear Colleagues, This is to draw your attention to several recent publications added to KarstBase, relevant to hypogenic karst/speleogenesis: Corrosion of limestone tablets in sulfidic ground-water: measurements and speleogenetic implications Galdenzi,
A recent publication of Spanish researchers describes the biology of Krubera Cave, including the deepest terrestrial animal ever found:
Jordana, Rafael; Baquero, Enrique; Reboleira, Sofía and Sendra, Alberto. ...
Exhibition dedicated to caves is taking place in the Vienna Natural History Museum
The exhibition at the Natural History Museum presents the surprising variety of caves and cave formations such as stalactites and various crystals. ...
Did you know?
That projected section is the result of projecting a section composed of several parts with differing directions onto a single plane. usually the plane is vertical along the general trend of the cave. the horizontal distance apart of points is not correct, only the vertical, so that slopes are distorted [25].?
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Featured articles from Cave & Karst Science Journals
Crayback stalagmites have mainly been reported from New South Wales, Australia. Here we document a small crayback in the entrance of Painted Cave (Kain Hitam), part of the Niah Caves complex in Sarawak, Borneo. Measuring some 65 cm in length and 18 cm in height, this deposit is elongate in the direction of the dominant wind and thus oriented towards the natural tunnel entrance. It shows the classic humpbacked long profile, made up of small transverse segments or plates, in this case the tail extending towards the entrance. The dark blue-green colour down the centre suggests that cyanobacterial growth follows the track of the wind-deflected roof drip. The dry silty cave sediment provides material for accretion onto the biological mat. This is the only example known from Borneo and one of the very few known from outside of Australia
Sinks, disappearing streams, hanging valleys, and natural bridges add a karst-like element to the miniature mountain topography represented in badlands. The Chinle Formation [Triassic] of the Petrified Forest in Arizona largely consists of compact, montmorillonitic and illitic claystones. Sinks in it result from disaggregation of swelling clay minerals rather than solution which affects limestone in true karsts. Ravines whose bottoms are pierced by sinks may develop into hanging valleys because their channels, robbed of surface flow downstream from these swallow holes, cannot keep pace with downcutting in the master drainage to which they are tributary. Growth of the sinks soon creates a disappearing stream that continues to deepen the upstream segment of a ravine. Thus the abandoned downstream segment beyond the sinks, no longer eroded by the stream, develops into a transverse barrier. Where the abandoned channel was initially short, the barrier may be eventually narrowed by weathering and slope erosion to form a natural bridge. Other bridges consist of jumbled material. that has collapsed from steep valley walls, undercut by small stream meanders
Following the first systematic part, in this paper the author describes the biological observations made on these Isopod Crustaceans of underground waters. The different sexual characters of the particular groups and the related differences in the behaviour before copulation are described. During the embryonic and larval development small differences between sub-genus are reported. To the differences in Caecospaeroma (according to Daum) the first and second "mancastadium" and another "postmanca stadium" with pereiopods VII not wholly formed have to be added. The author describes the growth of the different parts of the corps and the extremities, comprising the sexual characters.
Speleothems in the form of stalactites, linear stalactitic growths, flowstone, and crusts, from a hand-dug cave in Northeast Kansas (Sec. 2 NENW, T2S, R22E) are composed of calcite and aragonite. If the estimated age of the cave is correct, i.e., 150 to 200 years old, the stalactites have grown at a maximum rate of 0.20 to 0.15 millimetres per year along their vertical axes. All of the speleothems examined contain about one percent strontium (based on qualitative emission spectrograph analyses). Rate of supply and evaporation of the vadose waters may dictate whether aragonite or calcite is the polymorph that precipitates from the cave waters.
Experiments were designed to test the ability of the aphotic speleoenvironment to support algal growth. The first series contained gelatin cultures of Scenedesmus placed in the cave at different localities in order to establish whether or not the microhabitats have any particular effect on the multiplication of the algae. No differences were found in the cultures after a three month incubation period in the cave, which could be traced to influences of microenvironmental conditions. Chlorella cultures in sterile Knop's solution showed measurable growth in the cave whereas if the cultures were installed into sterilized cave water or were shielded by lead against possible radiation effects, no appreciable growth occurred. The presence or absence of magnetic field did not noticeably influence algal development. The experiments seemed to indicate that the algae tested are able to utilize soma kind of radiation in the complete darkness of the cava since, in the absence of organic material, appreciable amounts of molecular hydrogen or symbiotic activity, with iron bacteria, considerable growth occurred in a simple, strictly inorganic medium, whereas the cave waters seam to be deficient in some kind of inorganic salt required for algal nutrition. An investigation of algae living in the cave led to the determination of ten different taxa, the majority of which were Cyanophytes. Besides them, however, the cave may contain a more diversified algal population.
The author kept 108 algal strains (Cyanophyta 53, Chlorophyta 35, Chrysophyta 20), of axenic cultures from the Kol-Algotheca in the Botanical Division of the Hungarian National Sciences Museum in the Baradla Cave, at Aggletek (Hungary) in darkness for 204-420 days under different environmental conditions. The experiments have proven that several algal strains can tolerate well the complete absence of light. Furthermore, that some algal strains show intensive development even under such conditions. These axenic cultures kept in the cave in metal boxes on inorganic medium have shown that the energy source used by these green coloured algae is not some by-product of chemotrophic bacteria, nor is it available organic material, but that it must be some kind of radiation which is able to penetrate even the metal boxes. The ability to adapt to the conditions existing in a cave is not a general characteristic of algal species, but is the capability of individual algal strains within that species. Most probably the algae living in the caves are aerophytes, terrestrial forms, and also some belonging to the edaphon. The cells were found to be smaller in the algae kept in the cave, there was almost no starch deposition in the cells, the pyrenoids were barely discernible, but the development of carotenes was more intense. Whether there are specific cave dwelling algal strains must be determined by future algological research conducted in caves. The composition of the algal floras of the caves may be equally dependent upon the chemical and physical characteristics of the biotope, as is the case in every other biotope.
The author kept 108 algal strains (Cyanophyta 53, Chlorophyta 35, Chrysophyta 20), of axenic cultures from the Kol-Algotheca in the Botanical Division of the Hungarian National Sciences Museum in the Baradla Cave, at Aggletek (Hungary) in darkness for 204-420 days under different environmental conditions. The experiments have proven that several algal strains can tolerate well the complete absence of light. Furthermore, that some algal strains show intensive development even under such conditions. These axenic cultures kept in the cave in metal boxes on inorganic medium have shown that the energy source used by these green coloured algae is not some by-product of chemotrophic bacteria, nor is it available organic material, but that it must be some kind of radiation which is able to penetrate even the metal boxes. The ability to adapt to the conditions existing in a cave is not a general characteristic of algal species, but is the capability of individual algal strains within that species. Most probably the algae living in the caves are aerophytes, terrestrial forms, and also some belonging to the edaphon. The cells were found to be smaller in the algae kept in the cave, there was almost no starch deposition in the cells, the pyrenoids were barely discernible, but the development of carotenes was more intense. Whether there are specific cave dwelling algal strains must be determined by future algological research conducted in caves. The composition of the algal floras of the caves may be equally dependent upon the chemical and physical characteristics of the biotope, as is the case in every other biotope.
Exploration of the subterranean tract of the spring of En-Nur (at the North end of Lake Tiberias) by scuba diving and by use of new collecting methods, led to the discovery of a living community associated with the blind prawn Typhlocaris galilea. A rich growth of sulphur bacteria and of pigmentless Cyanophyceae from the trophic basis in this peculiar biotope. Representatives of three hypogeic crustacean orders have been found as well as some peculiar gastropods, nematods and oligocaets. The latter are the main food of Typhlocaris galilea.
Exploration of the subterranean tract of the spring of En-Nur (at the North end of Lake Tiberias) by scuba diving and by use of new collecting methods, led to the discovery of a living community associated with the blind prawn Typhlocaris galilea. A rich growth of sulphur bacteria and of pigmentless Cyanophyceae from the trophic basis in this peculiar biotope. Representatives of three hypogeic crustacean orders have been found as well as some peculiar gastropods, nematods and oligocaets. The latter are the main food of Typhlocaris galilea.
The eyes of larval T. spelaeus grow by negative allometry, but in allometric coefftcients they are not greatly different from E. lucifuga. The major differences in eye size, both absolute and relative to body size, between T~ spelaeus and E. lucifuga are established prior Io the larval growth period. The eyes of T. spelaeus cease to grow at metamorphosis and are reduced in size thereafter. In addition, there is increased individual variability and bilateral asymmetry of eye size in adult T spelaeus compared to both adulI E lucifuga and larval T. spelaeus. This variability, expressed as relative dispersion about mean eye size, is significantly greater than in E luci.fuga, and appears to result from three factors: 1) postmetamorphic cessation of eye growth, 2) wide variation in body size and eye size al metamorphosis, and 3) postmetamorphic shape changes and reduction of eye size.