jnbrg:If you know me or have been following me for, say, more than a day, you probably know I fuckin
jnbrg:If you know me or have been following me for, say, more than a day, you probably know I fucking love karst topography. This is a pretty handy (if simplified) graphic explaining what karst is — it’s essentially a kind of landscape shaped by water interacting with carbonate rock (dolomite or limestone) and forming carbonic acid (or HCO3). This acid then begins to eat through the rock. Carbonic acid is weak, and it’s really dilute, and the limestone and dolomite is only very slightly soluble, so mostly this reaction happens along fractures and bedding planes. A whole lot of time passes, and, very slowly, these fractures deepen and deepen and deepen. All these dissolved carbonates have to go somewhere, too, so if the water flows somewhere and evaporates, it’ll leave behind deposits of chemical limestone, also known as travertine. As a result, you get all sorts of cool formations — sinkholes, caves, speleothems, all sorts of crap. What’s not to love? -- source link
#diagram#information#geology#limestone#carbonate