What are stalagmites? How are karst caves formed? Stalactites and stalagmites, other rock formations. How long does it take for stalactites to grow?

Greek, from stalagma, liquid, penetrating drop by drop. The limescale deposit at the bottom of the cave has the shape of a cone, with its apex facing upward. Explanation of 25,000 foreign words that have come into use in the Russian language, with the meaning of their roots. Mikhelson... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

stalagmite- a, m. stalagmite f. gr. stalagma drop, stream. Lime build-up at the bottom of underground voids (caves, galleries, etc.), formed by drops of water containing calcium bicarbonate falling from the ceiling. BAS 1. Droppers with addition... ... Historical Dictionary of Gallicisms of the Russian Language

Stubble, riser, icicle on the contrary, drip, outgrowth, growth Dictionary of Russian synonyms. stalagmite noun, number of synonyms: 5 drip (7) ... Dictionary of synonyms

STALAGMITE, a sintered mineral formation consisting of crystals of CALCIUM CARBONATE, rising in the form of an icicle or column from the bottom of CAVES in carbon-rich limestone areas. Stalagmites are formed by water dripping from the ceiling of a cave and... ... Scientific and technical encyclopedic dictionary

STALAGMITE, stalagmite, husband. (from Greek stalagma drop) (mineral). A limestone build-up on the floor of a cave, formed by seeping drops of water containing lime. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

STALAGMITE, huh, husband. A rising limestone build-up at the bottom of a cave, formed by drops falling from the ceiling and shaped like a standing icicle. | adj. stalagmite, oh, oh. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

Male, Lat. limescale that hardens, forming various patterns in caves. Male stalactite lime drip, overhanging, e.g. in caves, with icicles on top. tovy, related to one thing or another Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary. V.I. Dahl. 1863... ... Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

Miner. a sinter formation (usually calcareous) that appears at the bottom of caves during the evaporation of mineralized water dripping from above and grows from bottom to top. Geological Dictionary: in 2 volumes. M.: Nedra. Edited by K. N. Paffengoltz et al. 1978 ... Geological encyclopedia

stalagmite- A dripping formation in the form of a cone or column rising from the bottom of a karst cave, resulting from a constant supply of carbonate in the form of calcite from seeping groundwater falling down from a stalactite. → Fig. 310... Dictionary of Geography

M. Sintered limestone formation in the form of large icicles at the bottom of underground voids (caves, galleries, etc.), formed by drops of water saturated with calcium and carbon dioxide falling from the ceiling. Ephraim's explanatory dictionary. T. F. Efremova. 2000... Modern explanatory dictionary of the Russian language by Efremova

Drops falling from the ceiling hollow out a small (up to 0.15 m) conical hole in the cave floor deposits. This hole is gradually filled with calcite, forming a kind of root, and the stalagmite begins to grow upward.

Size of stalagmites

Stalagmites are usually small in size. Only in some cases do they reach a height of 6–8 m with a diameter of the lower part of 1–2 m. The largest stalagmite in the world with a height of 63.2 m was found in Martin Cave (Cuba). The second place is occupied by the stalagmite in the Krasnogorskaya Cave (Czechoslovakia), its height is 32.7 m. In areas where they connect with stalactites, calcite columns, or stalagnates, of the most varied shapes appear. Patterned or twisted columns are especially beautiful. Photo of a stalagmite

Stalagmite shape

Depending on their shape, stalagmites have many names. Stand out conical stalagmites, pagoda-shaped, palm, stick stalagmites, corallites(tree-shaped stalagmites that look like coral bushes), etc. The shape of stalagmites is determined by the conditions of their formation and, above all, the degree of water content in the cave. The stalagmites that look like stone lilies in the Iveria Grotto of the Anakopia Cave are very original. Their height reaches 0.3 m. Top edges Such stalagmites are open, which is associated with the splashing of water drops falling from a great height and the accumulation of calcium carbonate along the walls of the resulting hole. Interesting are the stalagmites with rims, reminiscent of candlesticks (Tbilisi Grotto of the Anakopia Cave). Rims form around periodically flooded stalagmites. Meet eccentric stalagmites. Their curvature is often caused by the slow movement of the scree on which they form. In this case, the base of the stalagmite gradually moves down, and drops falling on the same place bend the stalagmite towards the top of the scree. Such stalagmites are observed, for example, in the Anakopia cave.

The structure of stalagmites

Stalagmites are characterized by a layered structure. In the cross section, concentrically located white and dark layers alternate, the thickness of which varies from 0.02 to 0.07 mm. The thickness of the layer around the circumference is not the same, since the water falling on the stalagmite spreads unevenly over its surface. Sometimes stalagmites are very beautiful in cross-section.

But most often stalagmites have the following cross-sectional appearance.

Research by F. Vitasek (1951) showed that growing stalagmite layers are a semi-annual product, with white layers corresponding to the winter period, and dark ones to the summer period, since warm summer waters have a higher content of metal hydroxides and organic compounds compared to winter waters. White layers are characterized by a crystalline structure and a perpendicular arrangement of calcite grains to the surface of the layers. The dark layers are amorphous; their crystallization is prevented by the presence of colloidal iron oxide hydrate. At high magnification, the dark layers reveal an alternation of many white and dark very thin layers, which indicates multiple changes in the conditions of seepage of infiltration water throughout the year. Strict alternation of white and dark layers in the cross section is used to determine the absolute age of stalagmites, as well as the underground cavities in which they form. The calculations give interesting results. Thus, the age of a stalagmite from the Kizelovskaya cave (Middle Urals), reaching a diameter of 68 cm, was determined to be 2500 years (Maksimovich, 1963). The age of the stalagmites of some foreign caves, determined by semi-annual rings, was 600 thousand years. (According to the research of F. Vitasek, in the Demanov caves in Czechoslovakia, a 1 mm stalagmite is formed in 10 years, and in 10 mm - in 500 years.) This interesting method, which is becoming increasingly widespread, is however still far from perfect and needs clarification . Longitudinal section of a stalagmite consists, as it were, of many thin caps placed on top of each other. In the central part of the stalagmite, horizontal calcite layers drop sharply downward towards its edges.

Growth of stalagmites

Stalagmite growth rate very different. It depends on the humidity of the air in the cave, the characteristics of its circulation, the magnitude of the influx of solution, the degree of its concentration and temperature conditions. As observations have shown, the growth rate of stalagmites varies from tenths to several millimeters per year. Of particular interest in this regard are the works of Czechoslovak researchers who used to determine age karst formations radiocarbon method. It has been established that the growth rate of stalagmites in caves in Czechoslovakia is 0.5–4.5 cm per 100 years (G. Franke). In the long and complex history of the formation of sinter formations, periods of accumulation of material can alternate with periods of its dissolution. This is interesting! Related article: στάλαγμα - drop) - sintered mineral formations (mostly calcareous, less often gypsum, salt), growing in the form of cones, pillars from the bottom of caves and other underground karst cavities towards stalactites and often merging with them, forming a stalagnate. The stalagmite found in the Martin Infierno cave (Spanish) is considered one of the tallest in the world and the largest in America. Martin Infierno), province of Cienfuegos (Cuba). Its height is 67.2 m. In Europe - 35.6 m (Buzgo cave in Slovakia).

Stalagmite in Sablinsky caves

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Excerpt characterizing Stalagmite

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How are they formed karst caves? Stalactites and stalagmites - what are they? Main breed Crimean mountains- limestone. Rocks riddled with cracks easily absorb moisture. Rain and melt water with dissolved carbon dioxide flows through them deep into the mountain. This very weak carbonic acid interacts with limestone (calcium carbonate), transforms it into a soluble state (calcium bicarbonate), and over the course of many millennia it washes and erodes its bed. This creates a growing, flooded cave. Over time underground river may find a new crack and go down another one, two, three, or even all six floors, as in Kizil-Kobe (Red Caves). The lower “wet” caves continue to grow, while the upper ones retain their original shape.

Stages of formation of karst caves

Rain and melt water seeps through capillaries through the soil with rocks and absorbs carbon dioxide. Small streams gather along cracks into an underground river.
Water (weak carbonic acid) continues to wash its channel. The limestone becomes soluble and is washed out of the rocks, making the water hard.
In the middle of the cave, the water goes into a crack and begins to create another channel for itself. In an abandoned cave (already free from the river) stalactites grow.
The river is washing a completely new channel. Large stalactites grow in the cave.

How are stalactites formed?

Hard water drips from the cave roofs. These are sediments transformed into rocks that seeped from the surface of the earth through the “roof”, and the cave’s own condensate. A reverse reaction takes place on the surface of the stone. Calcium bicarbonate dissolved in water turns back into carbonate, releasing carbon dioxide. In everyday life, a similar process leads to the appearance of plaque in bathrooms, scale in pots and radiators.

First, a ring appears on the rock, then a growing tube. Until the hole becomes clogged, water drips from it, and a sharp, straight stone icicle gradually grows - stalactite. If the water flow is good, if there are no neighboring drops, the stalactite will be single and can grow large. Where there has been constant rain for centuries, a whole forest of stalactites grows, usually of different lengths and thicknesses, sometimes of different colors. If the droplet is very small, dense thickets of “straws” may appear, more than a meter long and several millimeters thick, transparent, shining in the light of a lantern, like an exquisite underground chandelier.

What are seasonal stalactite rings?

Outwardly, they look like tree rings. They can also be used to determine age, weather conditions in times distant from us by thousands and even millions of years. To do this, determine the isotopic and chemical composition of the desired “ring”. It’s important not to make a mistake, because there are so many rings!

A modern ion mass spectrometer allows you to take samples from layers one hundredth of a millimeter thick - this corresponds to an analysis accuracy of one year.

How long does it take for stalactites to grow?

The growth rate of cave stalactites varies greatly. This depends on the amount and composition of water flowing from the “ceiling”, on the temperature and humidity of the air in the cave. It is difficult to even talk about any average values. In some caves, meter-high stalactites grow in a thousand years, in others - in five thousand years. But in any case, a broken “stone icicle” is irreparable damage to nature. The trace of a moral crime is like killing an animal for fun.

Stalagmites, stalagnates and other sinter formations

What other forms do sinter formations in caves have? In the place where the drop falls, first a speck appears, then a bump of insoluble salts (mostly the same calcium carbonate). The tubercle grows and turns into a stone stump - sometimes pointed, but more often flat or rounded by the random splashing of hard water. This is how it is formed stalagmite. Usually it is larger, thicker and stronger than a stalactite, because water flows down its walls and all the released carbonate is used for construction. And also because a stalactite sooner or later breaks off under its own weight, but a stalagmite never does.

If the movement of water is not disturbed, the stalactite fuses with the stalagmite. The strongest underground column is formed - stalagnate From now on, nothing threatens it except earthquakes, so stalagnates can grow to gigantic sizes.

Flowing down the inclined vaults of the cave, hard water leaves behind not specks, but stripes of calcium carbonate. These stripes grow in thickness and eventually turn into thin flat ones. sail. They can be smooth and wavy, like the edges of a tablecloth, they can cover the entire wall to the ground, or they can remain in the form of pasties, forming a “cornice” or “chandelier”, and then grow like ordinary stalactites. Everything depends on the movement of a whimsical, capricious, “lazy” water drop, which always chooses the easiest and most profitable path for itself. Usually scallops ring when you tap them with a stick, so walls covered with scallops are called xylophones or authorities.

The most interesting and unusual of karst deposits - helictites, or eccentrics. Starting to grow like stalactites, they bend strangely and bizarrely. Sometimes these are stalactites of the second order; they grow like branches on a tree trunk. Why do stalactites begin to grow to the sides, like druses of crystals, or even twist into a spiral, turning into helictites? Science doesn't give an exact answer. The mechanics and chemistry of helictite growth are borderline phenomena between two forms: sinter and crystalline. Helictites were found in the caves “200 years of Simferopol”, Nizhny Bair.

Helictites form in places where the air is still; there the same calcium bicarbonate, dissolved not in the water dripping from the vaults, but in the moisture of the air, turns into a solid state.

Underground waterfalls also leave behind traces of limestone. It grows in a dense natural layer and will remain a decoration for tens and hundreds of thousands of years. Even after the unlucky river leaves the upper floors of the cave, we see frozen stone waterfalls…

Drops and streams flow into the baths, along the edges of which a limestone ridge grows - gurova dam. The gur baths have their own life: stone “water lilies” and “lotuses” with rounded “buds” and flat “leaves” lying in the water grow.

Matures in some baths cave pearls. This is not gem, but the composition of sea and cave pearls is the same. It is generally accepted that a grain of sand falling into a bath is rotated by a water flow and is gradually enveloped in limestone (which in its pure form is transparent, like glass). But pearls are also formed in very quiet backwaters...

A wet, soft, shapeless mass of white color, sometimes with a bluish tint, was called moon milk. This is still the same calcium carbonate. Moon milk decorates the caves in its own way, and when dried, it crumbles into a fine powder when pressed. How moon milk is formed, the true mystery of karst caves, is something that only vague assumptions are made about. Nothing in nature except calcite exists in this state. Moon milk can be dry and wet, liquid and dense, viscous and fluid. In reality, this substance is neither solid nor liquid, it is not at all clear what it is... Scientists avoid this topic, leaving exotic lovers a clear field for thought and imagination.

Aragonite crystals

When the water leaves, the growth of the cave stops, but its interior continues to be enriched with new decorations. Air humidity in deep stone cavities approaches 100%. Water vapor is saturated with calcium bicarbonate ions, and crystals grow on stones (usually along cracks).

The whimsicality and capriciousness of the figures of aerosol crystallization is incomparable to any deposits: created according to the laws of the microworld, they depend on the composition and concentration of ions, on the paths of movement of water molecules, on the rules for constructing crystal lattices with all their additions and deviations. Aragonite is a hard type of calcite. It is formed when sufficient low temperatures, most often underground - in caves, ore deposits, and cold springs.

In the caves you can find tiny crystals of aragonite. When there are a lot of them, they glow in the lantern’s beam, like celestial stars. Sometimes large, acute-angled crystals grow, and nearby there are small ones, collected into “twigs”, into “fluffs”, into “snowflakes”. These can be sharp-spined “hedgehogs”, “thriving” stalactites of various shades, individual “cave flowers” collected in inflorescences of different colors and unimaginable shapes.

The most interesting and varied underground decorations grow as a result of the combined action of liquid water and an ion-rich aerosol. Graceful anthropomorphic figurines, little animals, “hairy Agos”, “jellyfish” with a fringe of “tentacles” along the edges, “anemones”... In a word, get your camera ready, open your notebook, fantasize! But everything will be poor, everything will be wrong: we are mere mortals, and the caves were created by her majesty Nature. Unequal.