Surface and subsurface environmental degradation in the karst of Apulia (southern Italy), 2003,
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Parise M. , Pascali V. ,

Karst environments are highly vulnerable to a variety of degradation and pollution problems. Geology (fractured carbonate rocks), morphology (presence of a network of cavities produced by karst processes), and hydrogeology (rapid concentrated flow through fractures and conduits) of karst carbonates strongly favour the movement of contaminants towards the water table. In particular, poor quality of subsurface water can derive from polluting substances flowing at the surface, and/or by direct immission of liquid and solid waste into the water table through the systems of conduits and joints in the rock mass. As a consequence, water quality can deteriorate severely, which implies very high economic and social costs in order to clean the polluted sites and restore the original situation. In some cases, such as when the original karst morphology is changed because of anthropogenic interventions, the variations created in the landscape are not recoverable, and a loss of sites of naturalistic interest has to be registered. High vulnerability of a typical karst region of the Mediterranean area is illustrated in this paper by describing some case studies from Apulia, southern Italy. The Apulia region, where karst processes have had a prominent role in the development of the present landscape, is mostly underlain by intensely karstified limestone. Two cases of pollution due to solid waste into karst cavities (Grave di S. Leonardo in the Gargano Promontory and Grave Pelosello in the Murge plateau), landscape transformation in the Minervino Murge area, and degradation of Gravina Monsignore, a typical karst valley in southeastern Murge, are described in the paper. In two out of four cases, degradation of the sites was discovered thanks to activity from local speleologists, who also acted as promoters for cleaning and safeguarding the polluted sites. These examples underline well the mismanagement of karst territories (in particular, the common practice to dump refuse into sinkholes and caves), the pollution of limestone aquifers, and the effects that such pollution in karst areas might have in terms of the risk to public health

Contribution of Ivan Gams to the development of slovene karst terminology, 2003,
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Kunaver, Jurij

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.

Involvement of Bacteria in the Origin of a Newly Described Speleothem in the Gypsum Cave of Grave Grubbo (Crotone, Italy), 2012,
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Cacchio P. , Ercole C. , Contento R. , Cappuccio G. , Martinez M. P. , Del Gallo M. , Lepidi A.

 

Microorganisms have been shown to be important active and passive promoters of redox reactions that influence the precipitation of various minerals, including calcite. Many types of secondary minerals thought to be of purely inorganic origin are currently being reevaluated, and microbial involvement has been demonstrated in the formation of pool fingers, stalactites and stalagmites, cave pisoliths, and moonmilk. We studied the possible involvement of bacteria in the formation of a new type of speleothem from Grave Grubbo Cave, the third-largest gypsum cave in Italy. The speleothem we studied consisted of a large aggregate of calcite tubes having a complex morphology, reflecting its possible organic origin. We isolated an abundant heterotrophic microflora associated with this concretion and identified Bacillus, Burkholderia, and Pasteurella spp. among the isolates. All of the isolates precipitated CaCO3 in vitro in the form of calcite. Only one of the isolates solubilized carbonate. The relative abundance of each isolate was found to be directly related to its ability to precipitate CaCO3 at cave temperature. We suggest that hypogean environments select for microbes exhibiting calcifying activity. Isotopic analysis produced speleothem d13C values of about – 5.00%, confirming its organic origin. The lightest carbonates purified from B4M agar plates were produced by the most abundant isolates. SEM analysis of the speleothem showed traces of calcified filamentous bacteria interacting with the substrate. Spherical bioliths predominated among the ones produced in vitro. Within the crystals produced in vitro, we observed bacterial imprints, sometimes in a preferred orientation, suggesting the involvement of a quorum-sensing system in the calcium-carbonate precipitation process.