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
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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:
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general lack of surface drainage or, if there is drainage it is
commonly internal (within closed depressions) View
a map
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sinkholes also called dolines. There are four types of sinks recognized
in Florida:
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1. solution sinks (often shallow and w/gentle slopes) when limestone is
near the surface
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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.
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3. Alluvial sinks, and
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4. Raveling sinks. More on Florida Sinkhole Types
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caves,
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When sinkholes grow together they form a karst valley, an elongated
depression that may grow to several miles in size
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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.
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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
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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.
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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 |