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A cave or cavern is a natural void under the Earth's surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance underground. Caves which extend further underground than the opening is wide are called endogene caves.
Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. There is some evidence that karst may occur in more weathering-resistant rocks such as quartzite given the right conditions.
A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are also known as shakeholes, and to openings where surface water enters into underground passages known as ponor, swallow hole or swallet. A cenote is a type of sinkhole that exposes groundwater underneath. Sink, and stream sink are more general terms for sites that drain surface water, possibly by infiltration into sediment or crumbled rock.
The Highland Rim is a geographic term for the area in Tennessee, North Alabama, and Kentucky which surrounds the Central Basin. Geologically, the Central Basin is a dome. The Highland Rim is a cuesta surrounding the basin, and the border where the difference in elevation is sharply pronounced is an escarpment.
Hanzhong is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Shaanxi province, China, bordering the provinces of Sichuan to the south and Gansu to the west.
A pit cave, shaft cave or vertical cave—or often simply called a pit and pothole or pot ; jama in Slavic languages scientific and colloquial vocabulary —is a type of cave which contains one or more significant vertical shafts rather than being predominantly a conventional horizontal cave passage. Pits typically form in limestone as a result of long-term erosion by water. They can be open to the surface or found deep within horizontal caves. Among cavers, a pit is a vertical drop of any depth that cannot be negotiated safely without the use of ropes or ladders.
The geology of China consists of three Precambrian cratons surrounded by a number of orogenic belts. The modern tectonic environment is dominated by the continued collision of India with the rest of Asia starting 40–50 million years ago. This has formed the Himalayas and continues to deform most of China. China has vast mineral reserves, a significant earthquake risk in its western regions and rare isolated active volcanoes throughout the country.
Marjorie Mary Sweeting, was a British geomorphologist specializing in karst phenomena. Sweeting had gained extensive knowledge on various topographies and landscapes by travelling around the world to places such as Greece, Australia, Czechoslovakia, United States, Canada, South Africa, Belize, and most notably China. She published Karst Landforms, and Karst in China: its Geomorphology and Environment. The latter is the first comprehensive Western account of China's karst, and one of the first western published works on the karst found within China, despite being a male dominated field.
Fengshan County is a county of Guangxi, China. It is under the administration of Hechi City.
The Daba Mountains, also known by their Chinese name as the Dabashan, are a mountain range in Central China between the watersheds of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. Part of the larger Qinling mountain range, it cuts through four provinces: Sichuan, Chongqing, Shaanxi, and Hubei. It spans about 1,000 kilometers (620 mi).
The Three Natural Bridges are a series of natural limestone bridges located in Xiannüshan Town, Wulong District, Chongqing Municipality, China. They lie within the Wulong Karst National Geology Park, itself a part of the South China Karst-Wulong Karst UNESCO World Heritage Site. In Chinese, the bridges are all named after dragons, namely Tianlong Qinglong and Heilong.
Sanmenhai is a cave in the Leye-Fengshan geopark in Guangxi, China. The cave is unique in that it features seven skylights that mimic the layout of the constellation Ursa Major.
Little Blue Lake is a water-filled sinkhole (“cenote”) in the Australian state of South Australia located in the state's south-east in the locality of Mount Schank about 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of the municipal seat of Mount Gambier. It is notable locally as a swimming hole and nationally as a cave diving site. It is managed by the District Council of Grant and has been developed as a recreational and tourism venue.
Enshi Grand Canyon is a natural scenic spot in Enshi, Hubei, China. It is located in the Qing River Basin, adjacent to the world's deepest sinkhole Xiaozhai Tiankeng. The total length of the canyon is about 35 kilometers, and almost all kinds of forms of karst landforms can be found, including cliffs, peak pillars, sinkholes, solutional caves, natural arches, subterranean rivers, hanging valleys, etc., constituting a rare three-dimensional karst landform. The Enshi Grand Canyon is under the management of the Enshi Grand Canyon Scenic Area Management Office, Enshi Mufu Office.
The Wells Gray Park Cave discovery of 2018 was of a karst cave in Wells Gray Provincial Park, in the Cariboo Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. The cave has informally been named Sarlacc's Pit pending an official name.
Patricia Kambesis is an American caver, cartographer and educator.
Cave diving is underwater diving in water-filled caves. The equipment used varies depending on the circumstances, and ranges from breath hold to surface supplied, but almost all cave diving is done using scuba equipment, often in specialised configurations with redundancies such as sidemount or backmounted twinset. Recreational cave diving is generally considered to be a type of technical diving due to the lack of a free surface during large parts of the dive, and often involves planned decompression stops. A distinction is made by recreational diver training agencies between cave diving and cavern diving, where cavern diving is deemed to be diving in those parts of a cave where the exit to open water can be seen by natural light. An arbitrary distance limit to the open water surface may also be specified. Despite the risks, water-filled caves attract scuba divers, cavers, and speleologists due to their often unexplored nature, and present divers with a technical diving challenge.
The Eagle is a sinkhole situated near Ping'e village, in Leye County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, South China, discovered in 2022.
References
- ↑ Hong'e, Mo (2016-11-25). "Giant karst sinkhole cluster discovered in NW China". www.ecns.cn. Retrieved 2024-11-23.
- ↑ 董庆沛 (2016-11-25). "Giant karst sinkhole cluster discovered in NW China". China.org.cn. Retrieved 2016-11-25.
- 1 2 Lie, Ma (2016-11-25). "World's biggest cluster of sinkholes wows geologists". China Daily. Retrieved 2016-11-25.
- ↑ "Xiaozhai Tiankeng". WonderMondo. 2010-08-17. Retrieved 2024-11-23.
