Karst Topography

A Tangy Tale That Will Seep Into Your Heart

• Karst landscapes can be seen as rolling hills dotted with sinkholes, and jagged hills and pinnacle karst.

• Covers 10% of the Earth’s surface, and ¼ of the world’s population depends on water supplied from karst areas.

• If these carbonic rocks formed above the water table, the c02 would escape into the atmosphere, However, distinctive karst surface features may be completely absent where the soluble rock is mantled, such as by glacial debris, or confined by a superimposed non-soluble rock strata

A Bird’s Eye View:

Puerto Rico• In more tropical areas, such as Puerto Rico, there may be thick massive limestones that

create jagged hills and narrow gorges.

• This is caused by the movement of solution along fractures and joints which etches the bedrock, leaving limestone blocks as isolated spines or pinnacles.

• Geological processes have created landforms unique to this area, creating an extensive forest canopy with more than 1,300 spp of plants and animals that call it home

• Large coastal wetlands rely on the complex hydrological dynamics of this karst region for their proper functioning.

Santa Cruz• This karst terrain differs from Puerto Rico in that it is dominated by doline

karst, the most widely distributed type of karst topography.• This landscape is dotted with sinkholes, also called dolines

– These are formed by either the dissolution of bedrock forming a bowl-shaped depression, or the collapse of shallow caves that were formed by dissolution of the bedrock.

• UC Santa Cruz is built on this type of landscape and is home to many caves, such as Empire Cave which was formed by the uplift of the Santa Cruz Mountains and marine terraces as well as the erosion of Cave Gulch, all helped lower the water table

• The North-South orientation of the passage way inside the cave reflects many other canyons and joints in quarries that are oriented in a north-south direction.

KRazy Karst• Karst systems are very vulnerable to ground water pollution because of the

rapid rate of water flow into the aquifer and the lack of natural filtration system• Sink holes dot the landscape of UC Santa Cruz campus, where much

construction has been modified to withstand the dangers. • Disappearing streams also occur in these regions where streams flow directly

into the underlying rock rather than over a surface stream or gully.– Karst terranes can cause enginerring challanges. These large cement

pillars, photographed on the ground floor of the Applied Science Building, are part of the building's foundation and go all the way to the top floors. They were incorporated during early phases of construction when construction workers noticed cement kept disappearing into the earth, presumably into subsurface karst features. The pillars, which are essentially long support stakes, extend deep into the ground and comprise an integral part of the building's foundation.