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A limestone cave habitat or environment is called a karst' The karst environments offer a variety of

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Title: A limestone cave habitat or environment is called a karst' The karst environments offer a variety of


1
A limestone cave habitat or environment is called
a karst. The karst environments offer a variety
of scientific opportunities to learn. Karst
provides scientists with a relatively undisturbed
window into how the land evolved, past
environments, and climate change through the
study of cave morphology and sediments.
Squire Boone Cave
2
Karst is recognized as a highly valuable,
non-renewable resource that can be especially
vulnerable to disturbance, more so than many
other land resources. The primary reason for this
is the three-dimensional nature of karst. The
formations can be broken or destroyed very easily.
Mammoth Cave
It takes hundreds of years for the formations to
grow.
3
Marengo Cave
Caves and the land in which they are located are
closely tied together. What happens on the
surface can affect the subsurface including
groundwater and caves. Groundwater pollution in
cave country (Indiana-Kentucky) is a serious
problem. It is often more serious than surface
water pollution. Living things in the caves are
very fragile.
4
Karst caves, are most likely to be found where
there are limestone or gypsum rocks. Caves are
formed by water running off non-soluble harder
rock. Once the water hits the limestone rock, it
quickly finds its way underground through the
porous rock. Porous means the rock has holes and
small cracks in it.
Plants are growing in the cracks and holes in the
limestone rock.
5
Karst is a special habitat in which the landscape
is largely shaped by the dissolving action of
water on bedrock (usually limestone, dolomite, or
marble).
Colorado River erosion in the Grand Canyon.
6
Stalagmites are formations which grow up from the
floor of a cave. They are made by water dripping
and the minerals in the water building up to form
the stalagmites.
Marengo Cave
7
A stalactite is an icicle-shaped formation which
hangs down from the ceiling of a cave.
Stalactites are formed as ground water containing
minerals filters through the earth's layers and
drips through the ceiling of the cave. The
minerals are deposited as the water evaporates,
and over hundreds of years the mineral deposits
build up and form stalactites.
8
Columns are formed when stalactites (which grow
down from the ceiling) and stalagmites (which
grow up from the floor) actually grow together.
Mammoth Cave
9
Flowstone formations are formed as water flows
over dirt and rock, and many times leaves the
appearance of a waterfall. A surface coating or
layer is deposited by minerals in the cave
water.
10
Trogloxenes
The word TROGLO means hole. Trogloxenes are
animals who sometimes choose caves as their
homes. They like to live in holes.
11
Some animals who like to live in caves can also
live elsewhere. Some examples are shown below
12
These animals only live in caves. They can't
survive anywhere else. They can not tolerate
bright light from the sun. They have lived in
darkness so long that their eyes are not
functional like our eyes. Below are some
examples
13
The fact that animals live in caves at all,
proves that caves are not isolated from the
surface. Food moves into the cave in two ways it
is washed in, or it is carried in by animals.
Much of the food inside a cave is carried in by
bats.
14
There are many fantastic tales about bats, and
almost all of them are false. They are not
aggressive and bite only in self-defense, just
like any other wild animal. Our own pets are more
dangerous and carry more diseases than bats do.
Although bats can see very well, it is their
echolocation that makes
them special.
15
By listening for the echoes of these calls, bats
are able to find insects in the dark and to fly
through dark caves. Thus, bats are one of the few
predators on night flying insects, such as
mosquitoes and moths. Bats are important in the
balance of nature both above and
below ground.
16
Bats only roost in caves they cannot stay there.
Bats must leave the cave in order to hunt for
insects. When they return, their droppings
(guano) fall to the floor of the cave. Cave
crickets, which also feed add their guano and
their eggs to the cave as well. Fungus feeds on
the guano and the egg shell material breaking it
down into microscopic pieces.
17
Millipedes and tiny crustaceans feed on the
fungus. Cave beetles prey on these animals and
eat the eggs of cave crickets.
18
Caves are all around in Southern Indiana. You may
have walked over caves hundreds of times,
completely unaware of the marvelous realm that
lays inside the earth so nearby!
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