Research On Kentuckys Karst PDF Download

Growing up in Kentucky, I have seen and heard of the geologic wonders that a karst landscape has to offer. I have been to Mammoth Cave several times throughout the years. I remember watching the news as a teenager when a large sinkhole opened inside the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. More recently, I watched the news in 2019 when an unoccupied and underdeveloped area on the Louisville Zoo’s property sunk in. Stories like these are not uncommon when you live on a karst landscape. A karst landscape is underlain by soluble, carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite. On this landscape, you can find sinkholes and caves that have formed as acidic groundwater dissolves the rocks, allowing sediment to fall downward or underground streams and rivers to flow creating tunnels. For my thesis, I want to discuss karst in Kentucky and touch on Mammoth Cave. After that, I plan to talk about sinkholes in further detail.