Book Description

This book is mainly concerned with the geomorphological aspects of caves - karst hydrology, speleogenesis and the origin of speleothems. Cave exploration was a necessary prerequisite for such studies and its progress is traced from prehistoric times to the systematic regional investigations of the 1 7th century and later. The first extensive work was in Slovenia, stimulated by the practical importance there of karst hydrology for water supply and flood control. Large karst springs had long attracted attention and several hypotheses had already been advanced; according to some they were supplied by water raised from the sea, others explained them by condensation and finally their source as rainfall was accepted. The study of intermittent karst lakes led eventually to the postulation of what amounted to a water table.A true understanding of speleogenesis and the origin of speleothems depended on a knowledge of the chemistry of limestone solution, which in its tum depended on the rejection of phlogiston at the end of the 18th century. Before that time only mechanical erosion was normally conceived as a means of removing particles of solid rock and subsequently redepositing them to form speleothems, although a few people earlier in the century had involved an unspecified "aerial acid". There were also several more primitive theories including the formation of caves by tectonic "catastrophes", by erosion as the water of Noah's Flood drained back underground, and the inflation of cavities in still soft limestone by decomposition gases. For many years speleothems were thought to possess a low form of life, growinglike plants rather than by accretion.After the action of carbon dioxide in speleogenesis was appreciated a new question arose - whether caves could be formed in the saturated zone or whether they were due solely to vadose water. For many years the problem was not recognised but violent controversy was taking place over it by the end of the 19th century.