Abstract:

In many lithologies erosion (removal of material) and denudation (lowering of the land surface) are directly related butthis is not the case in karst where the majority of erosion is subsurface and only contributes to denudation over geological time. Dissolution is the dominant agent of both denudation and erosion although mechanical weathering of karst rock by clasts brought in by allogenic streams may contribute to the enlargement of cave passages. Most published ‘denudation’rates are actually corrosion rates and many were based on at most a few years of spot measurements at a spring or at a catchment outlet. Hence, considerable caution is necessary in interpreting the results. Cosmogenic nuclides could provide loner-term denudation estimates but have only rarely been applied to karst. Theoretical equations allow prediction of maximum erosion rates from runoff (water surplus), temperature, and carbon dioxide concentrations but field measurements indicate that erosion rarely operates at the maximal rate. Erosion rates vary spatially, with dolines a clear focus, and vertically, with most dissolution contributing to development of the epikarst rather than direct lowering of the land surface. Human activities, and particularly limestone quarrying, are potent erosive forces and in some areas more limestone was removed by quarrying in the twentieth century than by corrosion over the Holocene. Quarrying is also a direct agent of denudation, locally lowering land surface by tens or hundreds of meters