PROFESSOR CAM NELSON

A karst landscape forms from dissolving rock, in this case, dissolving limestones. Most landscapes result
from rain, the Sun beating down on them and physically destroying them, but a karst landscape forms
from the dissolution, the dissolving of rock, the dissolving of limestone in particular. And here we have
an example of karst landscape that’s formed general cave system, we’re only about 20 kilometres to the
west of the Waitomo Caves, and here is a much smaller ancestral cave system which is formed in the
Mangapohue Stream, which is flowing below us here.

The cave system behind us has collapsed in its roof and so it’s now open to the skyline, but right here at
the Mangapohue natural bridge, the roof of that cave system still survives, and these are called natural
bridges in limestone terrains.

Rainwater is slightly acid. It actually picks up CO2 from the atmosphere, and that makes a mild carbonic
acid out of the rainwater. And then when the rainwater actually enters into the soil zone, it can also pick
up additional acidity from the organic acids associated with the decay of vegetation and the respiration
of plants. So the water that’s flowing through the limestone can be quite acidic, and that acid will
dissolve the limestone, breaking the calcium carbonate that limestone’s made up of into its various
components. In particular, CO2carbon dioxide is released in that process as the water passes through
the limestone. So the acidity of rainwater is certainly the active control on the production of karst
features.

There’s a whole raft of terminology associated with karst topographies ranging from the large-scale cave
systems to features such as natural bridges, sinkholes, fluting or lapiez weathering

And then the things that go with a karst topography that precipitate calcium carbonate. Again, once it’s
dissolved, it can build up in its concentration in the water to such an extent that you can actually start to
precipitate calcium carbonate again in things like stalactites and stalagmites – stalactites hanging from
the ceiling, stalagmites growing from the ground. There are drip stones where dripping water rich in
calcium carbonate starts to reprecipitate the dissolved calcium carbonate. There are flow stones that
run down the walls and produce travertine deposits. In fact, stalactites and stalagmites, basically the
calcium carbonate that’s precipitated, we wouldn’t really call it a limestone, we call it travertine – it’s
still a calcium carbonate-rich rock. So there’s a myriad of these different sorts of micro-karstic features.