PSEUDOKARST IN THE 21ST CENTURY

• Main Author: William R. Halliday
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: permafrost
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.552.8037; http://www.caves.org/pub/journal/PDF/v69/cave-69-01-103.pdf

ABSTRACT: Karst is a specific type of terrain (or landscapes) with characteristic suites of well-known surface and subsurface dissolutional features. The latter result from integrated subsurface drainage. A variety of nondissolutional processes forms terrains analogous to certain types of karst; these are termed pseudokarst. Before 1906, these generally were believed to be karst somehow formed in poorly soluble rocks. They share a considerable range of features, resources and values with karst, commonly (but not invariably) including caves, and the two are linked across a wide spectrum of processes and features (e.g., between dissolutional and piping caves). Unlike karst, integrated subsurface drainage may not be present. Isolated caves define neither karst nor pseudokarst. Multiprocess terrains and landscapes are not uncommon. Based largely on conclusions of a working session of the 1997 International Congress of Speleology, eight types of pseudokarst are identified, with notably different implications for extraterrestrial habitats: rheogenic pseudokarst, glacier pseudokarst, badlands and piping pseudokarst, permafrost pseudokarst, talus pseudokarst, crevice pseudokarst, compaction pseudokarst and consequent pseudokarst. Some appear to exist on Mars. Speleologists expert in their differentiation should serve as consultants to planetary geologists.