karst
A landscape formed by the dissolution of soluble bedrock — limestone, dolomite, gypsum — characterized by sinkholes, caves, disappearing streams, springs, and underground drainage. In karst terrain, the water goes underground: rivers vanish into holes, resurface miles away, and the surface is pocked with depressions where the rock has dissolved and collapsed. Cenotes, cathedral-sized caverns, and the subterranean rivers of the Yucatán are all karst phenomena.
Etymology
German, from the Karst Plateau of Slovenia and northeastern Italy, the type locality where the landform was first studied. The Slovene word kras may derive from a pre-Indo-European root meaning bare, stony ground.
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