Understanding the Nature of Collapsed Subsurface karsts: Analogues from the Tropical Karst Regions

Karst is a distinctive landform that results from
the dissolution of carbonate rocks, and the dissolutional
process is considered to be an important geologic phenomenon
that may lead to the formation of karst reservoirs. The process
of burial, compaction and diagenesis is believed to transform
subaerial multiple karst caves into coalesced collapsed
paleocave systems, but it is hypothesized that large passage
caves of tropical karst regions can be evidence for the existence
of large scale collapsed single cavern. In order to comprehend
the mechanism of formation and dimensional increment after
burial, a tropical karst cave was surveyed and world largest
passage caves were considered. It is inferred that, not only
deep burial of paleocave systems that result interconnected
fractures and coalesced breccias, rather such phenomenon can
be manifested if large cave passages are subjected to burial.
Moreover, because of the presence of immense speleothem
deposits that typify tropical karst areas, we suggest that
additional cave facies, i.e. massive to slightly fractured
speleothems, to be included in the pre-existing paleocave facies
classification.
Index Terms - Cave, collapse, karstification, tropical karst