karst Processes – Geography Optional Notes – For W.B.C.S. Examination.

Karst systems are often extremely sensitive to the nature of human activities taking place on the surface.Continue Reading karst Processes – Geography Optional Notes – For W.B.C.S. Examination.

Pollutants and contaminants can wash into karst landforms and downward through cracks and fissures in the hard carbonate bedrock, rapidly entering the aquifer below. Because so much of the world’s population (some sources estimate as much as 25%) draws drinking water from karstic aquifers, there is a significant incentive to understand and develop land use regulations that work to prevent the inadvertent contamination of groundwater supplies in karst landscapes. This acts as an introduction to the topic, describing the processes by which karst features form, identifying several of the most common karst landform types, and providing examples of instances in which careless or unmanaged human–karst interaction had negative results.

Unique landforms and patterns of drainage called karst or karst topography primarily form in temperate to tropical regions, though they are found in arid and polar regions too. The common feature shared by all karst landscapes is that they are underlain by chemical sedimentary rocks particularly susceptible to dissolution, carbonates and/or evaporites. The landforms result mostly from chemical weathering of the host rock and the progressive integration of subsurface cavities, though collapse into solution cavities can also be important. Karst landscapes are often dominated by underground drainage networks that interrupt and capture surface water flow.

Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant rocks, such as quartzite, given the right conditions.^[2] Subterranean drainage may limit surface water, with few to no rivers or lakes. However, in regions where the dissolved bedrock is covered (perhaps by debris) or confined by one or more superimposed non-soluble rock strata, distinctive karst features may occur only at subsurface levels and can be totally missing above ground.

The English word karst was borrowed from German Karst in the late 19th century,which entered German much earlier.According to one interpretation the term is derived from the German name for a number of geological, geomorphological, and hydrological features found within the range of the Dinaric Alps, stretching from the northeastern corner of Italy above the city of Trieste, across the Balkan peninsula along the coast of the eastern Adriatic to Kosovo and North Macedonia, where the massif of the Šar Mountains begins, and more specifically the karst zone at the northwestern-most section, described in early topographical research as a plateau, between Italy and Slovenia.

In the local South Slavic languages, all variations of the word are derived from a Romanized Illyrian base (yielding Latin: carsus, Dalmatian Romance carsus), later metathesized from the reconstructed form *korsъ into forms such as Slovene: kras and Serbo-Croatian: krš, kras.Languages preserving the older, non-metathesized form include Italian: Carso, German: Karst, and Albanian: karsti; the lack of metathesis precludes borrowing from any of the South Slavic languages, specifically Slovene.^[11][12] The Slovene common noun kras was first attested in the 18th century, and the adjective form kraški in the 16th century.As a proper noun, the Slovene form Grast was first attested in 1177.

Ultimately, the word is of Mediterranean origin. It has been suggested that the word may derive from the Proto-Indo-European root karra- ‘rock’.^[15] The name may also be connected to the oronym Kar(u)sádios oros cited by Ptolemy, and perhaps also to Latin Carusardius.

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