Abstract
The South-East Karst Province of South Australia is an extensive area of low relief with dolines, cenotes, uvalas, and a variety of cave types developed in the soft, porous, flat-lying Tertiary Gambier Limestone and also as syngenetic karst in the overlying calcarenite dunes of the Pleistocene Bridgewater Formation. The most spectacular surface karst features are the large collapse dolines, especially those that extend below the water table to form cenotes. Shallow swampy hollows occur in superficial Quaternary sediments. These are an enigmatic feature of the Bool Region, where all gradations appear to occur between definite karst dolines and nonkarstic hollows. Some depressions may be polygenetic—involving a combination of: (1) primary depositional hollows on coastal flats or in dune fields, (2) deflation, and (3) karst solution and subsidence. There are extensive underwater cave systems in the southern part of the province, and the bulk of the cave development there may well lie below the present water table, although these systems would have been at least partly drained during the lower sea levels of the last glacial period. Systematic variations within the province reflect differences in the parent rock types, the extent and nature of the cover and, most importantly, the hydrology—in particular the depth to the water table and its gradient.
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