Porosity development in marble stripe karst

Karst voids are generally formed through dissolution of the host rock by meteoric or thermal water, resulting in localised porosity (caves). Caves are targets for groundwater, mineralization and petroleum, so the understanding how various cave geometries are formed, and under what circumstances, has both theoretical and economic interest. The project consider three problems of general interest in karst science: That is to what extent lithological and hydrological effects dictate the distribution of caves within a rock mass, how and why extreme karst porosity in the form of a) labyrinths an d b) large rooms are formed. These problems are normally too complex to be solved in general cases. This investigation takes advantage of simplified situations with well-defined boundary conditions provided by marble stripe karst in north Norway. Here, by choosing appropriate study sites, geological and hydrological setting can be varied systematically at will and correlated to cave types within the outcrops. This permits much more clear-cut testing than is common in karst research, so that new hy potheses may be posed for other karst types.