Volcanogenic karstification of Sistema Zacatón, Mexico

Morphogenesis of hypogenic caves

“…4; Kempe, 1996), the Big Room in Carlsbad Cavern, or the indirectly documented (via drilling) hydrothermal cavity in the Archean and Proterozoic marbles in southern Bulgaria with a maximum vertical dimension of 1340 m and an estimated volume of 237.6 million m 3 (Sebev, 1970;, probably the largest known, although not accessible, cave chamber on Earth. It is likely that hypogenic mega-sinkholes associated with hydrothermal systems, such as Sistema El Zacatón in Mexico (Gary and Sharp, 2006) or obruks (local name in Turkey for cenote-like sinkholes) in Konya Basin, Turkey (Bayari, 2007, personal communication) are collapse features over giant chambers. Lesser but instructive examples of hypogenic isolated chambers are described by Frumkin and Fischhendler (2005) from the central mountain range of Israel.…”

Volcanogenic origin of cenotes near Mt Gambier, southeastern Australia

“…The cenotes on the Yucatan Peninsula are believed to have formed by collapse into cave systems formed by both freshwater/seawater mixing along the coast (Smart et al, 2006) and focused groundwater flow through a high permeability zone developed along ring fractures around the buried Chicxulub impact crater (Perry et al, 1995). The El Zacaton cenote in northeastern Mexico has been dissolved by volcanogenic fluids (Gary and Sharp, 2006), and cenotes in New Mexico have formed by collapse into cavities dissolved in underlying evaporite beds (Land, 2003). All possible modes of origin for the Mt Gambier cenotes will now be discussed, beginning with the least likely.…”

“…Drowned cenotes have also been recorded on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of northeastern Australia (Backshall et al, 1979). Cenotes occur in higher elevation limestones in South Africa (Gomes, 1985), northeast Mexico (Gary and Sharp, 2006), and on the Anatolian Plateau in Turkey where they are called "obruk" lakes (Jennings 1985), and they are known from evaporite karst in New Mexico (Land, 2003).…”

“…Cenotes, although they are all superficially similar, have a variety of origins, including dissolution by magmatic CO 2 (northeast Mexico; Gary and Sharp, 2006), and collapse into cave systems formed by marine-freshwater mixing solution (e.g. Yucatan; Smart et al, 2006) or by dissolution of evaporite beds (e.g.…”

Peculiar calcite speleothems filling fissures in calcareous sandstones and their palaeohydrological and palaeoclimatic significance: an example from the Polish Carpathians

“…Con versely, when de scrib ing cal cite rafts from Bešeňová (Slovakia) and carbon ates de pos ited from spring wa ters at Tylicz (Pol ish Outer Carpathians) Kostecka (1992Kostecka ( , 1993 con sid ered crys tals ful filling only the first cri te rion of Folk et al (1985), that is with curved faces, as gothic-arch cal cite. Sim i larly, gothic-arch calcites dis cussed by Chafetz and Guidry (2003) from Yel low stone trav er tine and by Gary and Sharp (2006) con sti tut ing sub aqueous spar from La Pilita sink hole (Mex ico), lack ad di tion ally stack ing slabs. The crys tals de scribed in the pres ent pa per are char ac ter ized only by curved faces and they lack ad di tional slabs.…”