Abstract
There have been fewer researchers looking for initial flow paths along karst bedding-planes than those who deduced the origin of cave channels from tectonic structures. The aim of my research was to focus scientific attention on the lithology where answers might be expected. The study has conformed that the basic idea of bedding-planes being important in the initiation of cave channels but also has shown that the interrelation is different to what had been supposed. Single lithological, petrological or stratigraphical parameters of the inception are only partly known, or merely guessed. My researches threw light on the problem of initial channels met in the Velika Dolina collapse doline at Škocjanske Jame caves. Cave passages or their fragments and other traces of the underground karstification do not appear scattered at random on the walls of the doline but they are obviously gathered along small number of so calledformative bedding-planes.
The basic working method was to locate the phreatic channels or their fragments, and to sample and examine microscopically those parts of the layers adjacent to a bedding-plane. Sometimes a whole layer was considered. Other methods were: examination of the regional distribution of caves; photographing and classifying speleogens; and complexometry, to measure the purity of limestones.
The initial channels are practically all gathered along only three formative bedding-planes, out of the 62 measured (less than 5%). Their close vicinity differs from the others in several important properties, including typically damaged rock, a higher level of calcium carbonate content, and smaller porosity. Consequently this localization cannot possibly be only apparent.
It was identified that, at least in respect of the particular example of Velika Dolina collapse doline, inception started along inter-bed movement that without doubt pushed the beds aside leaving a gap.
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Knez, M. The influence of bedding-planes on the development of karst caves (a study of Velika Dolina at Škocjanske Jame caves, Slovenia). Carbonates Evaporites 13, 121–131 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03176585
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03176585