Page 200 - Fundamentals of Geomorphology

8

KARST LANDSCAPES

Acid attacking rocks that dissolve easily, and some rocks that do not dissolve so easily, creates very distinctive and
imposing landforms at the ground surface and underground. This chapter covers:

the nature of soluble-rock terrain
the dissolution of limestone
landforms formed on limestone
landforms formed within limestone
humans and karst

Underground karst: Poole’s Cavern, Derbyshire

Poole’s Cavern is a limestone cave lying under Grin Wood, almost 2 km from the centre of Buxton, a spa town
in Derbyshire, England (Figure 8.1). The waters of the River Wye formed it. In about 1440, the highwayman and
outlaw Poole reputedly used the cave as a lair and a base from which to waylay and rob travellers. He gave his name
to the cave. Inside the cave entrance, which was cleared and levelled in 1854, is glacial sediment containing the bones
of sheep, goats, deer, boars, oxen, and humans. Artefacts from the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman
periods are all present. Further into the cave is the ‘Dome’, a 12-m-high chamber that was probably hollowed out
by meltwater coursing through the cavern at the end of the last ice age and forming a great whirlpool. Flowstone is
seen on the chamber walls, stained blue-grey by manganese oxide or shale. A little further in lies the River Wye, which
now flows only in winter as the river enters the cave from a reservoir overflow. The river sinks into the stream bed
and reappears about 400 m away at Wye Head, although thousands of years ago it would have flowed out through
the cave entrance. The river bed contains the ‘Petrifying Well’, a pool that will encrust such articles as bird’s nests