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Paleokarst a
riddle inside
confusion
Emil Silvestru
Uniformitarian geologists have observed limestone
features in rocks ranging from Precambrian to
Neogene, and interpreted them as ancient buried
landscapes paleokarsts. Assumed to require
repeated periods of long sub-aerial development,
paleokarsts have been used to challenge the 6,000year biblical time-scale.
On closer examination, paleokarst is found to be
a vague term adaptable to many uses. Karst landscapes develop today on the surface of limestones
and dolomites when soluble rock material is dissolved by CO2-enriched water. Distinctive landforms
are produced including large scale pocket valleys,
blind valleys, caves and potholes; medium scale
dolines*, shafts, and karst springs; and small scale
microkarst and karren*. None of the large scale
karst features present today are found as paleokarsts, though standard geology claims that much
better karstification conditions existed during most
of the ancient past.
Moreover, even under a thick rock cover, karst
ification continues unchecked, making it highly
unlikely that old karst features could survive unchanged. If such long periods of time had been
available, most of the limestone deposits should
have been dissolved away a long time ago. It is
therefore subjective to ascribe such great ages to
what proves to be in most cases a series of superimposed and overwritten features.
Paleokarst is therefore a confusing term because the
observed features were formed under different conditions from those that operate today. There was a
major qualitative change in the genesis of landforms,
especially karst landforms, at the end of the Tertiary.
Indeed, the Quaternary seems to be the only era of
true karstification processes. Rather than a problem
for Flood geology, the pattern of karstification in the
geologic record is easily understood in terms of the
different geologic processes that operated during
the global Flood and the post-Flood era.
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Large underground caverns are another product of the karstification process. This cave, Piatra Altarului, was formed below the surface by
the disolution of rock material. Subsequent flooding of the underground system formed a pool that left evidence of its previous water level.
Minerals from the water deposited as a layer of crystals that are clearly visible on the stalactites and walls. [Creation 21(3):12, Fig. 11]
long periods of sub-aerial development, have formed repeatedly during a one-year global flood? Paleokarst is a
geological phenomenon that requires a creationist investigation. However, we must properly understand what is
meant by karst and paleokarst.
Karsta brief historical overview
series of coalesced dolines; polje* (from Serbian) literally meaning field (a very large enclosed depression over
1 km across, with a flat alluvial bottom and one or more
streams coming from a karst spring inside the polje and
sinking inside the polje); kamenitza (from Serbian) meaning
a rock pool; karren (from German) also known as clints and
grikes or lapis in French; ponor (from Serbian) meaning
swallowhole, or swallet, (a place where a stream sinks under
the ground). Other terms like blind valley (a karst valley
abruptly terminating via a swallowhole) and pocket valley
(recule in French, sacktler in German, the reverse of a
blind valley, a valley suddenly beginning at the foot of a
cliff with a karst spring) also have regional origins. All this
is a peculiar kind of terminology, based on morphology,
with Kras remaining a type locality. However, the incredible mixture of terms makes it difficult to communicate in
a precise, unambiguous, scientific language.
In 1893, a Serbian geographer, Cviji, defined the karst
phenomenon,3 still emphasising morphology. This had the
effect, as Ford and Williams2 put it:
we now consider karst to comprise terrain
typically characterised by sinking streams, caves,
enclosed depressions, fluted rock outcrops and large
springs.
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After geographers and geologists, it was the biologists who next took
to the caves, especially after the Romanian biologist and Antarctic explorer, Emil
Racovitza, published in 1907 his Essai
sur les problemes biosplologiques.
Most consider this the birth certificate
of biospeleology.4
Then, following in the steps of engineers digging tunnels across the Alps,
hydrologists came investigating subterranean waters flowing kilometres inside
the mountains. Soon a clear distinction
was made between this type of waters
and other subterranean waters. It was in
the late sixties that a new concept began
to emerge the karst geosystem, incorporating rocks, climate, fauna and flora
in a close, interconnected system. Such Typical karst landscape. Input areas where the surface water sinks into the rock, exhibit
geosystems range from immense under- distinctive morphology. On this karst plateau, the isolated firs and the pond mark dolines, funground voids like the Sarawak Chamber2 nel-shaped hollows, one characteristic of karst landforms. [Creation 21(3):12, Fig. 5]
in the Mulu karst, with a volume of 2 x
107 m3, to hydrothermal caves in Romania, close to the surface, that support an entire food chain
with proper karstification processes. However, whenever
based on chemosynthesis5,6 and containing 32 new species
medium-to-large scale surface (and subsurface) karst and
and 2 new genera.7
parakarst features are present, they indicate the existence of
all four stages of the karstification process. Consequently,
Karst features and their significance to geology
any correct reconstruction of a paleokarst should identify
those medium-to-large scale features.
It is essential to understand that karst features are morphological expressions of a dynamic process the transit
Karst and evolutionary geology
of water through lithostructural units. This process consists
of the following stages:
In modern times, most of the fundamental treatises of
a) input (through aerial infiltration of rainwater and/or the
geology have only mentioned karst for its speleothems*
punctual sinking of water streams);
its subterranean crystalline deposits including stab) circulation (ranging from percolation to conduit
lactites and stalagmites. Occasionally, mention is made
flow);
about paleokarst as a paleoclimatic and paleogeographic
c) storage (in karst aquifers); and
indicator, but with little more than the concept of karst as
d) output (through outlets).
a geomorphic feature.
These stages are also present in the vertical clasCaves however, hold a special place in Quaternary geolsification of karst hydrographic zones.2,810 With one excepogy and paleontology, because of their sediments and the
tion, unless all four of these stages are present, orthokarst
associated fossils (flora, fauna and humans). However, they
and parakarst features do not occur*. The exception is
have only been considered a special, high-quality natural
that several small-scale surface features, such as karren
storage facility, and not a part of an important geosystem
and kamenitzas, may be present as parakarst features on a
with which they are finely tuned. Only after speleothems
large variety of rocks, including granites.1,2,8,11 However,
were first radiometrically dated in 1958,13 was the potential
these parakarst features are not generated by simple CO2of the karst geosystem for high resolution dating of the
rich rainwater but by local acidification. On limestone (and
Quaternary recognised . The allegedly isolated environrock salt or rock gypsum), all surface input features are
ment of caves and the abundance of crystalline formations
connected to more-or-less vertical channels through which
lured the new breed of radiometrists. The use of radiowater circulates towards the storage section. If there is no
carbon for these first datings drastically reduced the range
output for the stored water, the entire lithostructural unit
to the last glacial period. Nevertheless, the snowball was
becomes waterlogged, long before karren, dolines and blind
rolled over the rim, and it was just a matter of time until
valleys can form. In such cases, there are no distinctive
new radionuclides were promoted as stars on the newborn
karst landforms.
radiometric stage.
Thus a two-fold distinction emerges. Not all smallscale surface karst and parakarst features can be associated
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From the Proterozoic to Mesozoic, all paleokarst features seem to have been reduced to local minor surface
features.
During the Mesozoic, it is claimed that major karst
features formed only in some parts of Europe (namely
Yugoslavia). The other regions of the earth, even when
karstification conditions were much better than today, seem
to have produced nothing but bauxite ore deposits in minor
surface karst features.
Similarly, the Tertiary produced little, if any, aerial paleokarst, even though karstification conditions were supposedly good enough and long enough to generate a complex
and widely developed surface and subsurface karst.
The Quaternary, the shortest era according to evo
lutionary geology, has managed to make up for it all. In
this short period, karstification processes have been able
to generate the grandiose karst features we see all over the
world today, from the equatorial to polar regions.
It is clear that there must have been a major qualitative change in the genesis of landforms, especially karst
landforms, at the end of the Tertiary.
CEN Technical Journal 14(3) 2000
A logical inference from this change is that true karstification processes, like the ones we are witnessing today
(which after all are the ones that inspired the very idea of
karstification), only occurred in the Quaternary. All previous karst-like features represent protokarst (incipient or
incomplete karst) or pseudokarst.
In my view, the pattern of karst landscapes is an excellent reflection of the qualitatively different processes operating during the different stages of the worldwide Flood,
and during the 4,300 year post-Flood era.
Glossary
Karst literature abounds with terms formed by combining prefixes like pseudo, vulcano, halo (referring to halides),
and thermo (referring to karst features generated by warm
or hot air in ice) with the root karst. Unfortunately this
terminology brings together features that are generically
very different, and leads to confusion and misunderstanding.
How can one consider, for example, the morphological
similarities between a cave formed from ice melted by warm
air, and a cave formed in limestone by the complicated processes of chemical erosion and litho-structural control?
To clarify the situation, I have used a simplified terminology in this paper, to ensure consistency of terminology,
utilising as few criteria as possible.
a) orthokarst: karst features generated on limestone mainly
by chemical erosion. (I use the term karst as a generic
term, whenever the above-mentioned distinction is not
relevant.)
b) parakarst: karst features generated on karst rocks other
than limestone, mainly by chemical erosion.
c) pseudokarst: karst features generated on any type of rock
mainly by processes other than chemical erosion.37
Pneumatolysis: the alteration of rock or crystallization of
minerals by gaseous emanations from the late stages of
a solidifying magma.
Landforms have been classified as follows:
SURFACE FEATURES:
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References
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Cviji, J., Das Karstphaenomen: Versuch einer morphologischen Monographie,. Geographishe Abhandlung 5(3):218329, 1893.
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Madrid, Spain, pp. 637666, 1992.
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Lascu, C., Popa, R., Srbu, S., Vlasceanu, L. and Prodan, S., La grotte de
Movile: une faune hors du temps, La Recherche 24:10911098, 1993.
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