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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 leak is an opening in an aquiclude that permits penetration of water from other formations into the main aquifer [16].?
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KarstBase a bibliography database in karst and cave science.
Featured articles from Cave & Karst Science Journals
About 140,000 years ago, the breakup of large continental ice sheets initiated the Last Interglacial period. Sea level rose and peaked around 135,000 years ago about 14 meters below present levels. A record of Last Interglacial sea levels between 116,000 years to 136,000 years ago is preserved at reef VII of the uplifted coral terraces of Huon Peninsula in Papua New Guinea. However, corals from a cave situated about 90 meters below the crest of reef VII are 130,000 2000 years old and appear to have grown in conditions that were 6 degrees C cooler than those at present. These observations imply a drop in sea level of 60 to 80 meters. After 130,000 years, sea level began rising again in response to the major insolation maximum at 126,000 to 128,000 years ago. The early (about 140,000 years ago) start of the penultimate deglaciation, well before the peak in insolation, is consistent with the Devils Hole chronology
Uplifted coral terraces at Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea, preserve a record of sea level, sea-surface temperature, and salinity from the penultimate deglaciation. Remnants have been found of a shallow-water reef that formed during a pause, similar to the Younger Dryas, in the penultimate deglaciation at 130,000 2000 years ago, when sea level was 60 to 80 meters lower than it is today. Porites coral, which grew during this period, has oxygen isotopic values and strontium/calcium ratios that indicate that sea-surface temperatures were much cooler (22 degrees 2 degrees C) than either Last Interglacial or present-day tropical temperatures (29 degrees 1 degrees C). These observations provide further evidence for a major cooling of the equatorial western Pacific followed by an extremely rapid rise in sea level during the latter stages of Termination II
Morphological and genetic analyses of Eonycteris spelaea from 15 islands along the Banda Arc, from Sumatra to Timor and including Kalimantan and Sulawesi, revealed considerable divergence between islands and geographical patterning. On the basis of both morphology and genetics, the populations on the large islands of Greater Sunda (Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi) are generally distinct from one another and from those on the islands in Nusa Tenggara (Lombok to Timor), which form a more cohesive cluster. These differences may be the result of the Nusa Tenggara populations having been colonized more recently than those on the Greater Sunda, and probably from a single source. All biological measures of the relationships between island populations are positively associated with the extent of the sea-crossing between them, indicating the sea is an important barrier to movement. Multivariate analyses show the presence of a marked trend for body size to increase from west to east. However, individuals from Kalimantan are not consistent with this trend, being smaller than predicted, and on the two outer Banda Are islands of Sumba and Timor animals are a little larger than predicted from the longitudinal trend. These differences could be due to the relative isolation of these populations or differing environmental conditions. There is also a negative relationship between body size and island area, but this is confounded by the longitudinal trend. No significant longitudinal trends in the genetic data were detected and the trend in body size may be an adaptive response to an environmental cline that is known to occur in this region. (C) 2003 The Linnean Society of London
The stage of the scientific terminology is by all means one of the indicators of the development of the scientific branch, to which it belongs. Therefore the publishing of the Slovene karst terminology in 1973 was an important event for further development of Slovene karstology. Still more, the efforts for a comparative national karst terminologies of former common state Yugoslavia were successfully achieved in publishing the Serbian and Croatian karst terminology also, a year later. In fact, the former Association of the geographical societies of Yugoslavia decided to give full support to its subcommission in preparing the project Karst terminology of the Yugoslave nations and to a joint Yugoslave symposium on Karst terminology, held in Ljubljana from 22-23th October 1971, both guided and organised by prof. Ivan Gams, who was also the original initiator of this idea. All this efforts were newertheless combined and connected with the international work of that time to find most appropriate terms and definitions for the karst phenomena and to make them comparable in terms of national terminologies. Ivan Gams was therefore not only a most important promoter of the Slovene karst terminology and one of the leading persons of the scientific karstology in the time concerned but was due to his global ideas also one of the central persons in the international karstology.
Geomorphically, Huzhou, which is on the Yangtze River delta is characterized mainly by plains, with small hills. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the environmental geological hazards both natural and those incurred by human activities in different morphologic units. The authors point out that most of the regional environmental geological problems in the natural geologic-morphologic conditions, such as crustal stability, foundation of soft soil, soil waterlogging and soil erosion, have insignificant effects to the society, or related countermeasures of prevention and control have been adopted. But environmental geological problems incurred by human being's economic activities become more and more severe, for example, water and soil pollution and land subsidence in plain areas resulting from overexploitation of groundwater, and landslides, karst collapses and water and soil loss etc. caused by quarrying in hilly areas
Yunnan is famous for its attractive karst landscapes especially shilins, fengcong and fenglin. The development of caves beneath the shilins in the vicinity of Liman is closely connected with the formation of shilins. Most of the waters percolating through shilins run through the caves beneath them and are responsible for their formation. The study of cave speleogenesis deepens knowledge about both the development of shilins and karst structure. ln the vicinity of the Lunan Shilin, speleological, morphological and structural geological studies of four karst caves have been accomplished. At Puzhehei, Qiubei, which is characterised by numerous fenglin, fengcong and caves, speleological and morphological studies have been performed. Cave sediments for paleomagnetic analyses have been taken from all studied areas (samples CH 1-9). Karst caves in SE Yunnan are probably much older than the age of the cave sediments (<780,000 years B.P.). The studied areas are located in the vicinity of the Xiaojiang fault (N-S direction) and the Red River fault (NW-SE direction). The general directions of both active faults are assumed to influence the direction of the most frequent fissures as well as the cave passages near the Liman Shilin. The Maojiang fault more strongly influences cave passage orientation, while the more distant Red River fault most strongly influences fissure orientation
Filamentous microbial mats from three aphotic sulfidic springs in Lower Kane Cave. Wyoming. were assessed with regard to bacterial diversity, community structure, and ecosystem function using a 16S rDNA-based phylogenetic approach combined with elemental content and stable carbon isotope ratio analyses. The most prevalent mat morphotype consisted of while filament bundles, with low C:N ratios (3.5-5.4) and high sulfur content (16.1-51.2%). White filament bundles and two other mat morphotypes organic carbon isotope values (mean delta(13)C = -34.7parts per thousand: 1sigma = 3.6) consistent with chemolithoautotrophic carbon fixation from a dissolved inorganic carbon reservoir (cave water, mean delta(13)C = -7.47parts per thousand for two springs, n = 8). Bacterial diversity was as low overall in the clone libraries, and the most abundant taxonomic group was affiliated with the 'Epsilonproteobacteria' (68%) with other bacterial sequences affiliated with Gammaproteobacteria (12.2%), Betaproteobacteria (11.7%), Deltaproteobacteria (0.8%), and the Acidobacterium (5.6%) and Bacteriodetes/Chlorobi (1.7%) divisions. Six distinct epsilonproteobacterial taxonomic groups were identified from the microbial mats. Epsilonproteobacterial and bacterial group abundances and community structure shifted front the spring orifices downstream. corresponding to changes in dissolved sulfide and oxygen concentrations and metabolic requirements of certain bacterial groups. Most of the clone sequences for epsilonproteobacterial groups were retrieved from areas with high sulfide and low oxygen concentrations, whereas Thiothrix spp. and Thiobacillus spp. had higher retrieved clone abundances where conditions of low sulfide and high oxygen concentrations were measured. Genetic and metabolic diversity among the 'Epsilonproteobacteria' maximizes overall cave ecosystem function, and these organisms play a significant role in providing chemolithoautotrophic energy to the otherwise nutrient-poor cave habitat. Our results demonstrate that sulfur cycling supports subsurface ecosystem through chemolithoautotrophy and expand the evolutionary and ecological views of 'Epsilonproteobacteria' in terrestrial habitats. (C) 2004 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Elsevier BY. All rights reserved
An alternative to visualizing geologic time by looking into the past is to look into the future. Even geologically short future time scales completely outstrip our ability to forecast changes in human society, whereas most geologic changes in the same time will be modest. Many events that are infrequent on a human time scale, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, become commonplace on longer time scales, and events that have not occurred in recorded history, such as major ice ages, large meteor impacts, giant pyroclastic eruptions, or collapses of Hawaiian shield volcanoes, become almost inevitable in a million years
This paper examines historical geographies of speleology in Britain between 1935 and 1953. As the study of caves, speleology was constructed as a sporting-science. The paper traces the formation and activities of the British Speleological Association, the influence of the speleologist Eli Simpson, arguments relating to the practice of speleology, and the formation of the Cave Research Group in 1947, to examine the geographies of science that emerge through speleology. By tracing some of the spatial, social and practical issues within the histories of speleology, distinct social and regional geographies are uncovered. Debates about practising science, definitions of speleology as sporting-science and `the right kind of speleologist' complicate the geographical histories of speleology within Britain. As well as emphasising the spatial outcomes of these issues, I suggest that personality can also impact upon geographies of science in profound ways
The term sinkhole receives a lot of use, and equal amounts of abuse, in the popular media. Generally, anytime a hole or depression forms in the land surface, sometimes in a short period of time, it is called a sinkhole. Sinkholes are geologic features formed by movement of rock or sediment into voids created by the dissolution of water-soluble rock. Some sinkholes, such as the infamous Winter Park, Florida, sinkhole of 1981 (Figure 1), capture the attention of society as we view expensive homes and automobiles teetering on a precipice about to disappear into the underworld. Subsidence features caused by other processes, such as mine collapse and washouts resulting from broken water and sewer mains, are not true sinkholes, but may be equally as damaging. These features also result from rock or soil moving into a void, but the void was a result of human activities
Hardly anywhere else in Austria are there, in a very confined space, as many caving clubs as there are in the Styrian Mürz valley. In Kapfenberg alone, there used to be two clubs working side by side until a few months ago: “Sektion Kapfenberg des Landesvereines für Höhlenkunde in der Steiermark” as well as “Schutzverein Rettenwandhöhle”. Since the 1920s, when scientific cave exploring began, there have been far more speleological societies in the history of Kapfenberg cave explorers than anywhere else. So, taking into account official as well as unofficial changes of names in speleological organisations already existing, there were, apart from the caving clubs mentioned above the “Verein für Touristik und Höhlenforschung”, the “Landesverein für Höhlenkunde in Steiermark, Ortsgruppe Kapfenberg”, the “Verein für Höhlenkunde ‘Perlsinter’“ and finally the “Forschergruppe Hochschwab-Kapfenberg im Landesverein für Höhlenkunde in Steiermark”. The following lines are to examine the history of those societies up to the year 1973, when far-reaching reorganizations took place.
The symbiosis between man and caves usually causes a mixture of fascination and respect. When looking back at the history of Antique civilizations, there are references to this relationship made in almost all cases. Caves were men’s first home, their first meeting places, shelters, and ritualistic places. Nowadays, even with the fear of darkness and closed areas that is so usual, that old-time connection still exists. In the contemporary world, some places still hold a special sacred meaning to many social groups. Thus, the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, to the shrine of Fatima in Portugal, to the Ganges River in India or to the cave church of Bom Jesus da Lapa in the interior of Bahia State, Brazil, are closely related when it comes to spiritual complicity. These sites play a key role as a collective reference of human sacrifice in an increasingly automated, technical and individualistic world much more than as strengthers of the religious faith. In Brazil there are many important religious sites. This paper mentions important sites specifically from the northeastern region. The examples are the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus da Lapa, the Cave of Patamuté, the Brejoes Cave, and the Milagrosa Cave. All these examples show clear manifestations of popular traditions and year after year illustrate the important roles that caves play in regional Brazilian societies. This paper is not intended to diminish the physical studies of karst areas but it wants to emphasize the importance of the human variable, especially in developing countries, for the relationship between karst and caves in the popular tradition, transmitted by means of oral stories and folk beliefs goes beyond the scientific advances.