Bat Cave Home Page

GENERAL 

How to get access to the Cave
How to be a Good Guest
Where is Bat Cave?

The AREA 

The Geologic Time Scale 
Area rock Layers
Topography 
Geomorphology
Geological History 
           The Paleozoic
           The Mesozoic
           The Cenozoic
Water
The Hydrologic Cycle
Solution
Solution chemistry
Karst Landscapes
Erosional Features 
Depositional Features
Environmental Issues 

BAT CAVE

What is a cave?
How was Bat Cave formed?
Surface Plan of the site
Map of the Cave
Life in and around Bat Cave
A Virtual Trip Through Bat Cave

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

A Quiz

Bat Cave Home Page

KARST FEATURES
A Karst topography or landscape is the surface expression of solution processes associated with ground water activity.  It is characterized by numerous, unique features. Most of the features expressed at the surface result from ground water erosion.  Other erosional features, such as caves, are less readily visible at the surface, as are features resulting from ground water deposition. 

Erosional Features:

  • general lack of surface drainage or, if there is drainage it is commonly internal (within closed depressions) View a map
  • sinkholes also called dolines. There are four types of sinks recognized in Florida: 
    • 1. solution sinks (often shallow and w/gentle slopes) when limestone is near the surface
    • 2. collapse sinks (deep and steep-sided) when the roof of caves collapse. Collapse sinks commonly form in association with changes in the water table such as severe droughts, significant rain events or increased water withdrawal. Deep, circular sinkholes with nearly vertical walls that extend below the water table are often called cenotes.
    • 3. Alluvial sinks, and
    • 4. Raveling sinks. More on Florida Sinkhole Types
  • caves,
  • When sinkholes grow together they form a karst valley, an elongated depression that may grow to several miles in size
  • Where the water table is below the surface, rivers flowing in karst plains disappear in sinks and caves; such strams are called disappearing streams or stream to sink topography. If the river had a well developed valley, this valley will terminate abruptly at the point where the stream disappears and is called a blind valley.
  • From the point where this surface water is swallowed, the water now flows in passageways as an underground stream.  These underground streams which occasionally resurface in springs and river rises (O'Leno State Park  is such an example, where the Santa Fe River disappears only to rise again downstream).  Sometimes also, the roof over the underground river pathway collapses, resulting in a river once again at the surface but now channeled within steep walls. In places where the roof over the river is left standing, you get natural or rock bridges.  In some cases the old river valley, carved when that stream flowed at the surface in the past,  no longer carries any water because all the drainage is now underground and has become an abandoned valley. View a map of O'Leno showing most of these features
  • If sinks become plugged with less permeable clayey or silty materials, water will accumulate in the depression creating perched lakes and ponds that last till the obstruction is washed away. This is true on a small scale as well as a large scale. For example, solution created a karst basin south of Gainesville called Payne's Prairie.  It was drained by by a sink (Alachua sink) which clogged in 1871, creating a 32 sq mi lake. Some 20 years later, the debris washed away into underlying solution cavities and since that time it has again been Payne's Prairie.
  • When karst depressions or the surface of the land intersect the water table, the outflowing ground water may create springs, rivers, and lakes.
When sinkholes intersect, cockpit karst close spaced depressions and conical hills( the Arrecibo radio-telescope is located in one such sinkhole in cockpit karst in Puerto Rico.).  Tower karst is a more extreme form of cockpit karst.  As solution continues, the sinks get deeper and deeper until a layer resistant to solution is reached. From this point, solution can only proceed laterally. As the sinks coalesce, they create a limestone plain from which rise more resistant towers of limestone, up to 650' tall (Guilin, China)
Depositional features