Caves - Processes, Development, and Management

People have been interested in caves for a very long time. Our distant ancestors used them for shelter, as sources of water, and as places in which to conduct essential rituals. They adorned their walls with quite sophisticated artwork depicting both their existential and spiritual concerns. Caves feature in our mythology, they are used as places of worship in many cultures, and they are used throughout the world as places in which to store prized foodstuffs and wine. For at least two hundred years they have attracted scientists, artists, photographers, and recreational cavers. This book aims examines how caves form, the light they shed on past environments and climates, and the values, both environmental and cultural, that they provide to humanity. This second edition of Caves: Processes, Development, and Management is a welcome revision of the author's earlier treatment released over twenty years ago. It has been updated, significantly expanded, and largely rewritten. The intervening years have seen a dramatic increase in karst and cave research globally, with significant advances in our understanding of fundamental processes, in our ability to extract proxy climatic and environmental data from cave deposits, and in our understanding of the breadth of cave values and as a result the complexity of their management needs. This new edition adopts a broad international perspective in the research examples used and the cited literature, and has actively sought out material from the tropical world and the southern continents, thus avoiding the European and North American bias frequently found in speleological publications. Caves: Processes, Development, and Management, Second Edition, is organised into four sections. In the first section, contemporary processes of cave formation are examined. The second section of the book deals with past processes and their physical manifestation. In the third section, the use of caves by various organisms from bacteria to humans is explored. The final section of the book reviews our changing approaches to cave management and to catchment management on karst terrains. The book will be of use to anyone who is interested in caves and karst, or who wants to understand about cave formation, development, values and management.

List of contents

Preface and Acknowledgements
 
Figure Permissions
 
Plate Permissions
 
Chapter 1: Introduction
 
1.1 Some Basic Propositions
 
1.2 Now the Details...
 
Chapter 2: Caves and Karst
 
2.1 What is a Cave?
 
2.2 What is Karst?
 
2.3 Caves as Systems
 
2.4 Caves as Geomorphic Systems
 
2.5 Caves as Biological Systems
 
2.6 Where are the Deepest and Longest Caves?
 
Chapter 3: Cave Hydrology
 
3.1 Basic Concepts in Karst Drainage Systems
 
3.2 Porosity and Permeability
 
3.2.1 Diffuse flow
 
3.2.2 Fissure flow
 
3.2.3 Conduit flow
 
3.2.4 Understanding the karst drainage system
 
3.3 Zonation of the Karst Drainage System
 
3.4 Defining the Catchment of a Cave
 
3.5 Analysis of Karst Drainage Systems
 
3.5.1 Water tracing techniques
 
3.5.2 Spring hydrograph analysis
 
3.5.3 Spring chemograph analysis
 
3.6 Structure and Function of Karst Drainage Systems
 
3.6.1 Storage and transfers in the karst system
 
3.6.2 The role of extreme events
 
3.7 Karst Hydrology of the Mammoth Cave Plateau, Kentucky
 
Chapter 4: Processes of Rock Dissolution
 
4.1 Introduction
 
4.2 Karst Rocks
 
4.2.1 Limestone
 
4.2.2 Dolomite
 
4.2.3 Evaporite rocks - Gypsum and Halite
 
4.2.4 Sandstone
 
4.2.5 Granite
 
4.3 Processes of Dissolution of Karst Rocks
 
4.3.1 The solution of limestone in meteoric waters
 
4.3.2 Soil and vegetation in the limestone solution process
 
4.3.3 The zoning of solution in the unsaturated zone
 
4.3.4 Limestone solution in seawater
 
4.4 Hydrothermal Solution of Limestone
 
4.5 Solution of Evaporites
 
4.6 Solution of Silicates in Meteoric Waters
 
4.7 Caves in Quaternary Limestone in Southern Australia
 
Chapter 5: Speleogenesis
 
5.1 Classifying Cave Systems
 
5.2 Controls of Rock Structure on Cave Development
 
5.2.1 Role of lithology
 
5.2.2 Role of joints, fractures, and faults
 
5.2.3 Cave breakdown and evaporite weathering
 
5.3 Meteoric Speleogenesis, Unconfined and Confined
 
5.3.1 Formation of caves in plan
 
5.3.2 Formation of caves in length and depth
 
5.3.3 The formation of maze caves
 
5.4 Tectonic and Eustatic Controls on Cave Development
 
5.5 Deep Shafts of the World
 
5.6 Hypogene Speleogenesis
 
5.6.1 Solutional mesoforms as indicators of hypogene origin
 
5.6.2 Condensation and corrosion in passage enlargement
 
5.7 Flank Margin Speleogenesis
 
5.8 Caves Formed in Gypsum
 
5.9 Lava Tubes, Weathering Caves, and Pseudokarst
 
5.9.1 The formation of lava tubes
 
5.9.2 Weathering caves and pseudokarst
 
5.10 Life History and Antiquity of Caves
 
5.11 Geological Control and the World's Longest Cave
 
Chapter 6: Cave Interior Deposits
 
6.1 Introduction
 
6.2 Carbonates
 
6.3 Controls over Carbonate Mineralogy
 
6.4 Other Cave Deposits Formed by Carbonate Minerals
 
6.5 Growth Rates of Speleothems
 
6.6 Important Non-Carbonate Minerals
 
6.7 Evaporites (Sulphates and Halides)
 
6.8 Phosphates and Nitrates
 
6.9 Oxides, Silicates, and Hydroxides
 
6.10 Ice in Caves
 
6.11 Other Minerals
 
6.12 Cave Deposits of the Nullarbor Plain, Australia
 
Chapter 7: Cave Sediments
 
7.1 Introduction
 
7.2 Clastic Sediment

About the author

About the Author
David Shaw Gillieson is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Melbourne, Carlton, Victoria, Australia. He has held academic appointments at the Australian National University, University of New South Wales and James Cook University. Over the last fifty years he has explored and studied caves in Australasia, Europe, North America, Oceania and Southeast Asia. He is currently Treasurer of the Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association, and is a former Chair of the International Geographical Union Commission on Karst. He has been involved in the evaluation and writing of World Heritage nominations, and cave and karst management plans across the globe.

Summary

People have been interested in caves for a very long time. Our distant ancestors used them for shelter, as sources of water, and as places in which to conduct essential rituals. They adorned their walls with quite sophisticated artwork depicting both their existential and spiritual concerns. Caves feature in our mythology, they are used as places of worship in many cultures, and they are used throughout the world as places in which to store prized foodstuffs and wine. For at least two hundred years they have attracted scientists, artists, photographers, and recreational cavers. This book aims examines how caves form, the light they shed on past environments and climates, and the values, both environmental and cultural, that they provide to humanity. This second edition of Caves: Processes, Development, and Management is a welcome revision of the author's earlier treatment released over twenty years ago. It has been updated, significantly expanded, and largely rewritten. The intervening years have seen a dramatic increase in karst and cave research globally, with significant advances in our understanding of fundamental processes, in our ability to extract proxy climatic and environmental data from cave deposits, and in our understanding of the breadth of cave values and as a result the complexity of their management needs. This new edition adopts a broad international perspective in the research examples used and the cited literature, and has actively sought out material from the tropical world and the southern continents, thus avoiding the European and North American bias frequently found in speleological publications. Caves: Processes, Development, and Management, Second Edition, is organised into four sections. In the first section, contemporary processes of cave formation are examined. The second section of the book deals with past processes and their physical manifestation. In the third section, the use of caves by various organisms from bacteria to humans is explored. The final section of the book reviews our changing approaches to cave management and to catchment management on karst terrains. The book will be of use to anyone who is interested in caves and karst, or who wants to understand about cave formation, development, values and management.

Product details

• Authors: D Gillieson, David Gillieson, David Shaw Gillieson, David Shaw (University of New South Wal Gillieson
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.12.2020
• EAN: 9781119455578
• ISBN: 978-1-119-45557-8
• No. of pages: 528
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geology; Geologie, Höhle, Geowissenschaften, Earth Sciences, Strukturgeologie, Geology & Geophysics, Structural Geology & Tectonics, Geologie u. Geophysik, Strukturgeologie, Tektonik