Development of a deep karst system within a transpressional structure of the Dolomites in north-east Italy

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss techniques to represent groundwater flow in carbonate aquifers using the three existing modeling approaches: equivalent porous medium, conduit network, and discrete fracture network.

TL;DR: In this paper, the ages of calcite speleothems coincide with warmer and wetter periods when CO2 availability in the soils covering these gypsum areas was greater.

TL;DR: In this paper , the authors evaluated the importance of the conditioning factors in the overall prediction capabilities of the statistical and ML algorithms for landslide susceptibility mapping (LSM) in the province of Belluno (region of Veneto, northeastern Italy).

TL;DR: In this article, a new slice-based method is proposed for calculating the minimum safe thickness for a filled-type karst cave, where the filling medium is assumed to be in a limit equilibrium state on a straight-line sliding surface.

Abstract: Cave development is related to the geomorphic evolution. Their morphology, preserved far longer than correlative surface features allows reconstructing the regional history of the surrounding landscape. Modeling shows that initial cave development occurs along the water table with loops in the phreatic zone along fractures. Consequently, cave profiles and levels reflect the local base level and its changes. Cave profile is controlled by timing, geological structure, and recharge. In first exposed rocks, juvenile pattern displays steep vadose passages. In perched aquifers, vadose erosion produces large passage along aquiclude. In dammed aquifers, the main drain is established at the water table when recharge is fairly regular. But when irregular recharge causes backflooding, looping profiles develop throughout the epiphreatic zone. Interconnected cave levels correspond to some of the largest cave systems in the world. The oldest abandoned highest levels have been dated beyond 3.5 Ma (Mammoth Cave). However, when base level rises, the deepest parts of the karst are flooded; the flow rises along phreatic lifts, and discharges at vauclusian springs. In the epiphreatic zone, floodwater produces looping tubes above the low-flow water table. In such a case of baselevel rise, per ascensum speleogenesis can produce higher-elevation passages that are younger than passages at lower elevations. Base-level rises occur after tectonic subsidence, filling of valleys, or sea-level rise, as for instance around the Mediterranean in response to the Messinian Crisis. Deep-phreatic karst, if not hypogenic, can generally be attributed to flooding by a base-level rise.

TL;DR: In this article, Petrography, stable isotope, strontium isotope ratio, trace element and fluid inclusion analyses were carried out on samples from the Monte Grappa Anticline, which is the direct analogue for subsurface.

TL;DR: Flexural-slip structures are dominated by bedding-parallel movement horizons, but include a linked system of frontal and lateral ramps and conjugate movements horizons as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: A detailed geomorphic and morphometric analysis of the cave and a preliminary study of cave sediments, along with new datings of speleothems, allow us now to depict the multistage evolution of this cave, which produced at least three major paleo-phreatic levels related to different base level stages.