Experience in the formation of karst caves. Significance of caves. Speleofauna, environmental issues

Ural - the cave region of the state and the Uvelsky district Chelyabinsk region not an exception. Uvel karst caves- This is a unique karst area. Moreover, the Uvelsky district is not mountainous, but hilly steppe and forest-steppe! There are about 60 caves and grottoes. Some of them are "blind". Karst fields (several) and more than a hundred sinkholes.

Photo Karst funnel among birches

Some 4-tiered up to 27 meters deep. From a letter from an 18th-century traveler: "There is a great danger of a carriage or cart getting into the cave, because it is hidden under snowy rubble and passes exactly along the postal route that leads from Troitsk to Yekaterinburg."

Uvel "steppe" karst caves are hidden in the dungeon. There is a lot of everything karst here: hollows, logs, ravines, ponors, funnels, and below - grottoes, corridors and caves. In general, this whole area is full of holes.

Once upon a time, many millions of years ago, the Urals was the bottom of the sea-ocean. Any suspension, primarily calcium, settled on the bottom. Over millions of years, a hundred meters thick has accumulated. Then the sea receded, and its bottom opened and rose. This is the Uvel limestone. At first it was a dense monolith, and now it is eaten up and down with all sorts of cavities. He became porous. There are many voids in it, it is full of holes. Here and there it falls through funnels, logs and depressions. Water made this stone limestone, water wears it down.

Cave Cossack camp the largest in the region, it has a length of more than 200 meters. It is really difficult for an unprepared tourist to notice it. Right in the middle of an open field, or even in the center of a strawberry clearing, the earth's bowels suddenly open up under the feet of astonished travelers.

Until recently, between the two entrances to the underground labyrinth there was a tunnel through which one could freely pass. Those. the cave is two large funnels connected
passing through each other. By autumn it was all dry and it was possible to walk freely. But in 2005, the water did not go away and a glacier was formed that does not melt even in summer. Such is the phenomenon in defiance of global warming. Scientists do not give an explanation. The thickness of the ice is about a meter at the entrance, and there it is probably up to three meters deeper.

A few kilometers from the Cossack camp - Big and Small Zhemeryak. This place could become an experimental laboratory for oceanologists. A little extreme, rappelling and you are at the bottom ancient sea. Numerous bottom sediments, shells, shells, Marine life hundreds of thousands of years old, stuck around the walls. The fossils are well preserved. And it is difficult to find analogues of this phenomenon in Russia. The cave from time to time is flooded with water up to the very ceiling. The caves of the Zhemeryak log have been known since the 18th century and were described as early as 1756. Schismatics have found refuge here for centuries. The remains of the log house have survived to this day in the form of individual logs. Another platform was found to pass through the pit in the cave. It is hammered together with old nails with a square section.

Photo by V.I.Yurin with young speleologists.

The river Sukharysh in the Uvelsky district is called "karst". IN downstream Sukharysh 22 caves and grottoes. The most interesting are 4 through caves. They were discovered by Vladimir Yurin, a well-known speleologist in Chelyabinsk. This section of the river began to be called the Valley of Through Caves. Vladimir Ivanovich told how he walked along the left rocky bank of the Sukharysh and saw continuous thickets. Cross to the right bank, he saw something like a niche. Having made his way through dense thickets, he discovered a hole, which later turned out to be a through cave. When Yurin squeezed 6 meters into the cave, he heard an incomprehensible rumble. but the caves are usually silent. As it turned out, the entire ceiling was plastered with a carpet of flies and mosquitoes. They hid there from the heat. Upon further exploration of this cave, Yurin discovered human bones and beads. It was the burial of a woman from the end of the early Iron Age. Those. 2000 years ago. It is believed that only noble people were buried in the caves, it was an honor. The burial chamber was located inside the rock approximately in the middle of the cave. Above its passage was littered with stones. The height of the rock is 6 meters, the length of the cave is 25 meters.

Stock Foto Ust-Sukharyzhskaya cave.

Later, bones of a woolly rhinoceros, a bison, and a wild horse were found here for the first time in the caves of the Uvelsky region. This is already the Paleolithic 15-20 thousand years ago.

On top photo the largest sinkhole in area. Its diameter is 54 meters. Depth 14 meters. On the side is a rock 7 meters high under which there are five buried entrances. Inside is a vertical well leading to a spooky dungeon. V.Yurin explored the cave, its length after clearing was 110 meters. Moreover, the gap was so narrow that I had to hammer it for 5 hours to squeeze through. The cave goes horizontally, but there are vertical wells. Somewhere there are grottoes, somewhere I had to crawl. The funnel is part of a huge system. This is a powerful karst area from Klyuchi to Koelga, in the south to Podgorny. Most the funnel is dry. The flow of water occurs in the spring.

3 photos Karst sinkhole and cave near Podgorny (March 2018)

The bear climbed there with Yurin. You could say he became a speleologist.

V. Yurin developed several excursion routes"The world of caves of the forest-steppe" on caves and objects of history and culture, mainly on the territory of the Uvelsky karst area. Travel agencies of Chelyabinsk and other cities of the region lead excursions here.

The Uvel karst region is unique. It attracts speleologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, zoologists and geologists. Here in a small area we have 3 tectonic faults, different kinds limestone of different colors of organic origin is very rich in fauna. Various igneous rocks lie along the boundaries of this karst region. Almost all types of karst and practically all karst forms have been recorded. This area took the 4th place in the Chelyabinsk region in terms of the number of caves, grottoes and wells. Here are unique natural objects: a huge karst funnel (Kaygorodova), large karst (cave) dry logs, a "valley of through caves", an underwater cave. V.Yurin theoretically calculated an underground system with a length of 3-6 km.

Many archaeological sites are concentrated in a small area. XVIII - beginning. XX century.

Caves are cavities formed in the upper part of the earth's crust as a result of natural processes. Describes these mysterious objects so prosaically scientific language. However, true connoisseurs of caves will always have living words for them.

So, for example, Alfred Begley, a Swiss cave explorer, spoke about them: “Under the earth's surface in absolute darkness there is such a huge world that we can talk about a new continent.”

Geographic feature. Significance of the caves

The importance of caves for a person is difficult to overestimate. After all, it was the caves that became the first homes for primitive people, so revealing the secrets kept by the caves helps to add the missing puzzles to the picture of human history and evolution.

The great cognitive value of the caves is evidenced by the increased interest in speleology in recent decades, both from researchers and from tourists and adventurers. Around the world, the number of caves prepared for tourist visits is growing.

Great importance for agriculture have karst cave cavities, since their presence leads to care groundwater on great depth, drying of the upper layers of the soil, which must be taken into account when planning agricultural work. And some caves with a microclimate characterized by extremely low temperatures are used as large "refrigerators" for storing food and various materials.

The caves are of great importance for the extraction and research of various minerals and some iron ores.

Characteristics of the caves

Caves are protected from the outside world, have a constant internal climate, and evolve extremely slowly. These characteristics make them invaluable for archeology: the caves have preserved for us the remains of ancient people, the bones of extinct animals and pollen from plants.

The speleofauna is not particularly diverse, and yet there are animals and plants that settle mainly in caves or only in them. These are bats, perfectly oriented even in the longest and most intricate underground passages, some insects, shrimps and other crustaceans, spiders, fish and salamanders. Cave dwellers adapted to complete darkness are often completely blind and devoid of pigment.

Cave deposits are divided into mechanical and chemogenic. Mechanical deposits are clay, block blockages, sand, pebbles; chemogenic - stalactites and stalagmites that adorn ancient cave galleries.

Types of caves

Exist artificial(man-made) and natural(formed by natural processes) caves. Natural caves are divided by origin (leading process) into the following five types.

Karst. The largest group. They are the most beautiful, deep and extended. The process of their formation is a consequence of the dissolution of various rocks in water (gypsum, limestone, chalk, salt, marble, etc.). Exactly at karst caves ah, stalactites, stalagmites, as well as helicates and amazing cave onyx are formed.

Erosive. Similar in their formation process to karst caves, however, erosional caves are formed as a result of mechanical erosion, i.e. washed out with water containing solid grains (sand, stone fragments, etc.). Often formed along the coastline.

Tectonic. Formed at the sites of tectonic faults. Most common in the sides of river valleys, deeply wedged into the plateau.

Volcanic. They are formed as follows: during a volcanic eruption, the lava flow, cooling down, is covered with a crust, forming a lava tube. Inside the pipe, lava continues to flow for some time, which leads to the formation of a cavity. Volcanic caves also include caves formed by the vents of volcanoes.

Glacial. Formed in the body of glaciers. Among ice caves There are caves formed by melt water, caves formed in glaciers at the outlet of subglacial and intraglacial waters, as well as caves formed in glaciers at the outlets of subglacial thermal springs.

The largest caves

(Shondong Cave)

The largest cave in the world is a cave discovered in 2009 Shondong V Central Vietnam(Quang Binh Province). More famous, but smaller mammoth cave located in Kentucky, USA. It is a system of karst caves formed in a limestone layer.

In Russia, the longest is Botovskaya, whose length reaches 60 km. In Romania is movile cave- one of the three caves in the world, formed as a result of the impact on the rock of sulfuric acid. The cave is unique in that it is a closed ecosystem, isolated from the Earth's ecosystem.

The deepest cave

(Krubera Cave)

The deepest cave in the world - Krubera cave or crow- located in Abkhazia (Gagra Range). The cave branches into two branches: the depth of one is 2,196 m, the depth of the other is 1,300 m. It was discovered in 1960.

The longest cave

The longest in the world is the one already mentioned above. Mammoth cave system(Kentucky, USA). Its length is 627,644 m. Mammoth Cave lies in the foothills of the western Appalachians and in the explored part has 20 large halls, the same number of deep mines and about 225 underground passages.

Karst caves - underground cavities that communicate with the earth's surface or closed, are formed during the leaching of soluble rocks. Karst caves are natural mines, wells, cavities that have clear boundaries and appear in overlying unsaturated and water-saturated karst rocks. One of the forms of underground karst. They are subdivided (Andreychuk, 1984) into subtypes: corrosion-erosion, nival-corrosion, corrosion-gravity, corrosion-abrasion, travertine.

The surface of karst development areas is characterized by small furrows and depressions - karrs, closed depressions (craters, hollows, fields, natural wells and mines, blind ravines and valleys), niches in cliffs. In the limestone karst of the tropics, remnants (mogote) are common. The most typical funnels (conical, saucer-shaped or in the form of irregular pits) are from 1 to 200 m or more in diameter and 0.5 to 50 m deep, and sometimes much more. At the bottom of funnels and other depressions, there are water-absorbing holes - ponors, which are often the beginning of mines or wells, abysses, sometimes reaching a depth of more than 1000 m. ( maximum depth 1410 m - Jean-Bernard abyss in the Alps, France). Basins and funnels can either be filled with water or drained (periodically disappearing lakes).

Basins with an area of ​​up to several tens and hundreds of km 2 with disappearing streams are known as fields. In karst massifs, various underground passages, cavities and karst caves are formed, which often develop along cracks. One of the largest caves in the world Mammoth cave system Flint Ridge (at North America in the United States, Kentucky) reaches 341 km. total length. The most grandiose gypsum cave in the world in length is Optimisticheskaya Cave, discovered in 1966 (Podolia, Ternopil region, Ukraine); the total length of its mapped passages is now about 232 km, and the cave itself has an area of ​​\u200b\u200b~ 2 hectares, which is due to the multiplicity and sinuosity of the passages occurring at a depth of ~ 20 m. The total length is more than 100 km. have caves Hölloch (Switzerland, Alps), Jewell (USA, South Dakota) and Ozernaya (Ukraine, Ternopil region, Podolia), 9 caves of the world with a length of more than 50 km., 14 - more than 40 km.

The largest cave in Russia in terms of the volume of underground spaces and the length of internal passages is Bolshaya Oreshnaya. It belongs to the category of conglomerate caves and was formed in Lower Ordovician conglomerates; It is considered the largest cave of this category in the world. Peshch. Bolshaya Oreshnaya is located 3 km. east of the village of Oreshnoye, in the valley of the Taiga Badzhey, in the Mansky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

In regions with cold climates and harsh winters frosty air penetrates underground karst cavities and stagnates there so that even in summer the air temperature in them is close to zero or negative. In such cases, ice begins to form on the ceiling and walls of the cave in the form of crusts, crystals, ice stalactites and stalagmites. Of these ice caves, the most famous is the famous Kungurskaya ice cave. Kungur ice cave is located in Perm region(Northern Ural), this is one of the largest caves in Russia (the length of the cave passages is 5.6 km.) And the only cave equipped for excursions, it is located inside the so-called ice mountain which is located on the right bank of the river. Sylva.

The complex of surface and underground karst forms is most fully expressed when the surface of soluble rocks is exposed (bare karst); less pronounced when these rocks are covered with a layer of soil and turf (soddy karst), insoluble loose sediments (covered karst), semi-rock and rock formations (armored karst). In the case of deep burial of soluble rocks under non-karsting strata, a so-called “burrow” is formed. buried karst.

To form a karst cave, you need an array of karst rocks (mainly limestone or gypsum) with a sufficient catchment area, and a height difference. Morphologically, karst caves are systems of vertical dips, shafts, wells, horizontally inclined passages and cracks, sometimes with meanders, siphons, halls and labyrinths. In many karst caves there are sinter-drop formations (stalactites, stalagmites, stalagnates) and capillary-film mineral aggregates (crystallictites and corallites, helictites, etc.), and along the edges of stagnant underground reservoirs there are shores. There are underground rivers, streams, siphons, waterfalls, cave lakes. The inner parts of the caves are characterized by a special microclimate, the absence of sunlight, an increased concentration of carbon dioxide, and a peculiar fauna (the so-called speleofauna). The air temperature inside the deep extended caves is characterized by constancy and, with the exception of glacial caves, is equal to the average annual temperature of the surrounding area.

Karst caves

Cave- a natural cavity in the upper thickness of the earth's crust, communicating with the earth's surface by one or more outlets passable for humans. Most large caves- complex systems of passages and halls, often with a total length of up to several tens of kilometers. Caves are an object of study for speleology.

Caves can be divided according to their origin into five groups. These are tectonic caves, erosion caves, ice caves, volcanic caves, and, finally, the most large group, karst caves. Caves, in the entrance part, with suitable morphology (horizontal spacious entrance) and location (close to water) were used by ancient people as comfortable dwellings.

Types of caves

Karst caves

Limestone, and even more so marble, dissolves very poorly with pure distilled water. The solubility increases several times if dissolved water is present in the water. carbon dioxide(and it is always dissolved in water, in nature), however, limestone still dissolves slightly, compared to, say, gypsum or, moreover, salt. But it turns out that this has a positive effect on the formation of extended caves, since gypsum and salt caves not only quickly formed, but also quickly destroyed.

A huge role in the formation of caves is played by tectonic cracks and faults. According to the maps of the explored caves, one can very often see that the passages are confined to tectonic faults that are visible on the surface. Also, of course, for the formation of a cave, a sufficient amount of water precipitation is necessary, a successful form of relief: precipitation from large area should fall into the cave, the entrance to the cave should be located significantly higher than the place where groundwater is discharged, etc.

The chemistry of karst processes is such that often water, having dissolved the rock, after a while deposits it back, forming the so-called. sinter formations: stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, draperies, etc.

The world's longest Mammoth Cave in the United States is embedded in limestone. It has a total length of passages of more than 500 km. The longest cave in gypsum is Optimistic, in Ukraine, with a length of more than 200 km. The formation of such long caves in gypsum is associated with a special arrangement of rocks: the layers of gypsum that enclose the cave are covered from above with limestone, due to which the vaults do not collapse. The longest cave in Russia is the Botovskaya cave, over 60 km long, laid in limestone, located in the Irkutsk region, the Lena river basin. Slightly inferior to it is Big Oreshnaya - a karst cave in conglomerates in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. deepest caves the planets are also karst: Krubera-Voronya (-2191 m), Snezhnaya (-1753 m) in Abkhazia. In Russia, the deepest cave is Gorlo Barloga (-900 m) in Karachay-Cherkessia. All these records are constantly changing, only one thing is invariable: karst caves are in the lead.

Tectonic caves

Such caves can arise in any rocks as a result of the formation of tectonic faults. As a rule, such caves are found in the sides of river valleys deeply cut into the plateau, when huge rock masses break off from the sides, forming sagging cracks (sherlops). Seizure cracks usually wedge together with depth. Most often they are covered with loose deposits from the surface of the massif, but sometimes they form rather deep vertical caves, up to 100 m deep. Sherlops are widely distributed in Eastern Siberia. They are relatively poorly studied, and probably occur quite often.

erosion caves

Caves formed in insoluble rocks due to mechanical erosion, that is, worked out by water containing grains of solid material. Often such caves are formed on the seashore under the action of the surf, but they are small. However, the formation of caves, worked out along the primary tectonic cracks by streams going underground, is also possible. Quite large (hundreds of meters long) erosional caves are known, formed in sandstones and even granites.

Glacial caves

Another type of glacial caves are caves formed in a glacier at the point where intraglacial and subglacial waters exit at the edge of glaciers. Meltwater in such caves can flow both along the glacier bed and over glacial ice.

A special type of glacial caves - caves formed in a glacier at the exit of underground thermal waters. Since the water is hot, it is able to make voluminous galleries, however, such caves do not lie in the glacier itself, but under it, since the ice melts from below. Thermal ice caves are found in Iceland, Greenland and reach considerable sizes.

Volcanic caves

These caves are formed during volcanic eruptions. The lava flow, cooling down, is covered with a solid crust, forming a lava tube, inside of which molten rock is still flowing. After the eruption has already, in fact, ended, the lava flows out of the tube from the lower end, and a cavity remains inside the tube. It is clear that lava caves lie on the very surface, and often the roof collapses. However, as it turned out, lava caves can reach very large sizes, up to 65.6 km long and 1100 m deep (Kazamura Cave, Hawaiian Islands).

The deepest caves in the world

Longest caves in the world

The largest caves in the territory of the former USSR

Speleofauna, environmental issues

Although the living world of caves, as a rule, is not very rich (excluding the entrance part, where sunlight), however, some animals live in caves, and it is in caves. First of all, of course, these are bats, many of their species use caves as a daily shelter or for wintering. Moreover, bats fly, sometimes, into very remote and hard-to-reach corners, perfectly orienting themselves in narrow labyrinth passages.

In addition to bats, in some caves, in areas with a warm climate, several species of insects live, spiders ( Neoleptoneta myopica), crayfish, shrimp ( Palaemonias alabamae), salamanders and fish ( Amblyopsidae). And cave views adapt to complete darkness, lose their sight. Often these species are very rare, endemic.

archaeological value

Primitive people used caves all over the world as a dwelling. Even more often, animals settled in the caves. Many animals died in the cave-traps, starting from steep wells. The extremely slow evolution of caves, their constant climate, and protection from the outside world have preserved a huge number of archaeological finds to us. These are the pollen of fossil plants, the bones of long-extinct animals (cave bear, cave hyena, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros), cave drawings ancient people (Kapova caves in the Southern Urals (drawings), Divya in the Northern Urals (cave bear), Tuzuksu in the Kuznetsk Alatau), tools of their labor (Strashnaya, Okladnikova, Kaminnaya in Altai), human remains of different cultures, including including Neanderthals, up to 50-200 thousand years old (Teshik-Tash cave in Uzbekistan, Denisova cave in Altai, Cro-Magnon in France and many others).

In culture

The cave has an important symbolic meaning.

Notes

Links

• Caves of Kugitang (Turkmenistan) Cap-Kutan system. Photo tour and some literature.
• B. Mavlyudov. Reflections on ice in caves
• Caves of the Perm region. Ordinskaya cave. Cave Diving

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

Karst caves

The dissolution (leaching) of certain rocks causes a number of phenomena that are called karst or, in a word, karst. These phenomena were first studied on the Karst lime plateau in Yugoslavia. They are found where soluble rocks are common: rock salt, gypsum, chalk, limestone, dolomite. Surface and underground waters leach large and small cavities in them, which often have bizarre shapes, forming caves, dips, grottoes.

When the roof collapses over the karst voids or the rocks lying from the surface are leached, peculiar relief forms appear - karst. Of these, the most common funnels of various sizes and shapes, hollows and dips; car-ry - recesses, ditches, cracks, furrows that cut through the earth's surface.

Under the influence of karst, many amazing phenomena occur: rivers, streams, lakes disappear (literally fall into the ground); some rivers suddenly "emerge" to the surface; on seabed pour out of karst cavities fresh water. It is believed that some legends about suddenly disappearing cities (say, about the invisible city of Kitezh) arose under the influence of karst failures into which buildings collapsed. Such phenomena are not uncommon in areas where karst is developed.

The study of karst is associated primarily with practical needs: the construction of cities and individual structures, the operation of railways, etc. Karst failures, for example, have repeatedly occurred near the canvas railway on the Moscow-Gorky line. One of the funnels had a diameter of 50 m. It took 15 wagons of soil to fill it. Even more trouble is caused by karst failures in cities. There are cases when houses fell into karst cavities, and entire neighborhoods were destroyed. So, in Johannesburg (South Africa) at the end of 1962, a whole factory disappeared underground, in a failure, and later - a residential building. Apparently, these dips arose as a result of large pumping of groundwater. Stability was broken in karst cavities, in dolomites and limestones lying under the city.

IN karst areas it is very difficult to carry out hydrotechnical construction.

Despite this, construction is underway in karst areas. Thus, the Pavlovskaya hydroelectric power station on the Ufa River, Kakhovskaya on the Dnieper and many other dams are located in places where karst is developed. But here, even before the start of construction, geographers and geologists worked to study the karst and suggested measures to combat it. After all, despite all the "cunning" of karst, it can be successfully dealt with. For example, to inject cement through wells into underground voids or “heal” funnels with soil.

Karst greatly complicates underground work: driving mines, galleries, tunnels. Often underground streams and rivers flow in karst voids, there are underground lakes. But underground, karst can also become a human helper: speleologists (cave explorers) manage to penetrate hundreds of meters into the depths of mountains through karst caves.

Karst caves are wonderful creations of nature. Fanciful labyrinths, galleries; majestic grottoes and "bottomless" abysses; stone "icicles" of stalactites and stalagmite columns; turbulent streams, waterfalls and the quietest lakes; special animal world and fragile crystalline formations are all found in karst caves. Some of them are very large. In the Middle Transnistria, the length of the Lake Cave is 21.6 km, and the Main (Crystal) Cave is 18.8 km. famous Kungur cave in the Cis-Urals it has a length of 4.6 km; it has more than 30 lakes. The largest cave is Mammoth (USA, Kentucky); the total length of all its branches is 240 km. There are many caves in the Caucasus, in the Crimea. In the summer of 1979, Soviet speleologists, who explored the Caucasian cave Snezhnaya, descended to a depth of 1190 m. The world's deepest karst failure is the cave of Pierre-Saint-Martin in France (1332 m).

Karst is ancient and modern. In the Volga valley, Samarskaya Luka, you can see karst forms formed more than 150 million years ago. This is an ancient karst. Modern karst processes have different intensities. And yet their speed, in general, is not very high. Over the years and decades, a large karst cavity, or karra, cannot form. So the age of most modern karst forms is many thousands or even millions of years.

For the formation of karst, the presence of soluble rocks is still not enough. Of great importance are the depth of groundwater (the lower their level, the deeper the karst forms), the chemical composition of surface and groundwater, relief, climate, and human activity ( mining, construction, hydraulic structures, etc.). Therefore, it is very difficult to study karst, its causes, features and methods of dealing with it.

Karst is found in many vast areas of our country: in the Central Russian and Volga Uplands, in the basin of the Oka, Klyazma, the upper reaches of the Dnieper and Don, in the Volyn Upland, in the Baltic States, on the O-Dvina watershed, in the northern part of Belarus, in the Carpathians and Transcarpathia, in the Crimea and the Caucasus, Caspian lowland, in the Urals and in the Urals. Karst is also common in Eastern Siberia, in the Western Baikal region, in Primorye and Amur region, in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. It has been studied in the most detail in the European part of the country. However, even here, in many areas, it has not yet been studied well enough.

A young local historian can learn about the existence of karst in a given area from the stories local residents and specialists, as well as landforms, caves, etc.

Karst can be detected by characteristic landforms (karr, sinkholes); along disappearing streams and rivers; in areas where the amount of water in the river decreases or sharply increases; major groundwater sources. In large karst depressions and karst ravines, heavily overgrown small sinkholes are not uncommon, which are not easy to notice. However, it should be remembered that it is precisely such pockets of dense vegetation that indicate the existence of sinkholes here.

It is necessary to examine karst landforms very carefully, keeping in mind the possible encounter with deep karst wells, dips; one cannot act alone, without the participation of experienced senior comrades, teachers. It should be limited to the inspection and measurement of karst landforms from the surface (without descending into dips, caves). Conduct an eye survey of the areas of their distribution, plot these areas on small-scale maps and diagrams. Special attention it is necessary to pay attention to damage to roads, individual structures in connection with the manifestations of karst. Karst caves are very dangerous: it is easy to get lost in them; in addition, deep karst wells and abysses are often found in them.

Source: yunc.org