Chapter 17
1. How does carbonic acid form? When carbon dioxide dissolves in water.
2. What is meant by dissolution? Removal of bedrock through chemical action of water.
3. What kinds of rocks are most susceptible to solution processes and why? Limestone and dolomite because the water dissolves the rock.
4. What is the importance of jointing and bedding planes to the underground structure of caverns? There are more caverns where joints and bedding planes are.
5. Describe and explain the formation of speleothems such as stalactites, stalagmites, and columns. Formed by precipitated deposits if minerals on the wall, floor, or roof of a cave.
6. In what kinds of rocks does karst topography usually develop? In easily decomposed rocks such as limestone.
7. Explain how a sinkhole is formed. When land underneath erodes and there is a depression formed.
8. Describe the formation of a collapse sinkhole and an uvala.
9. Describe the characteristics of tower karst.
10. What is a swallow hole? A disappearing stream?
11. Why is there a scarcity of surface drainage in karst areas?
12. What is hydrothermal activity?
13. What are the differences between a hot spring, a geyser, and a fumarole? What causes these differences?
14. Briefly explain the eruption sequence of a typical geyser.
1. Which is more important for weathering action of underground water, mechanical or chemical weathering?
2. How does the underground structure of the bedrock influence the dissolution process?
3. How is it possible for percolating groundwater to both remove mineral material and deposit it?
4. How can groundwater pumping by people lead to sinkhole formation?
5. What three conditions are necessary for hydrothermal features to develop?
6. What is the importance of jointing and bedding planes to the development of hot springs and geysers?
7. Why don’t most geysers erupt at regular intervals?
8. The 1912 eruption of Mount Katmai in Alaska buried a nearby river valley beneath