Veress Márton: A Bakony természettudományi kutatásának eredményei 23. - Covered karst evolution... (Zirc, 2000)

RESEARCH HISTORY

- cockpits, where bordering cones are arranged in irregular patterns and tropical mazelike depressions, where cones are arranged in rows (VERESS 1998); - saucer-like depressions formed by subsequent denudation (SZABÓ 1956, 1966); - shafts (VERESS-FUTÓ-HÁMOS 1987); - dolomite hillocks (VADÁSZ 1951), conical elevations or various shape and size further sculptured by subsequent denudation, buried or exhumed (SZABÓ 1966; VERESS-FUTÓ 1990; VERESS 1991); - dolomitic barriers (VADÁSZ 1951), dolomitic crests (SZABÓ 1966); - karst hills on a common base (fengzong type inselberg karst - VERESS 1998); - cavities, passages (SZABÓ 1966, VÉGH 1976) or solution horizons in two levels developed in two stages (late Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous and Eocene-Helvetian) above each other (JAKUCS 1977). The presence of various paleokarst features is explained by changes in climate and thus in the nature of karstification (SZABÓ 1968) and also by different rates of denudation (SZABÓ 1966; VERESS 1998). The variation in paleokarst features could be apparent, resulting from various degrees of exhumation (VERESS 1991, 1998). Regarding the rate of exhumation, VERESS (1998) identifies buried cones being exhumed (hillock with cover sediments), cone under exhumation (carbonate rock outcrops on the hillock, the surface slopes in three directions towards the environs with cover sediments) and semiexhumed cones (the surface slopes in alldirections from the carbonate rock outcrop towards the environs with cover sediments). A genetic classification of paleokarst landform asseblage was made by SZABÓ (1966) and it was confirmed by data collected from bauxite exploration and mining (PATAKI 1983). In SZABÓ'S system karstification produces a karstic peneplain (intermountain plain) encircled by cones. Further away from the cones, over higher surfaces in the initial stages of karstification a landscape with depressions filled in by bauxite develops. The dolines filled by red clay or redeposited gravels, however, developed during Tertiary (post-Eocene) karstification stages (JUHÁSZ 1988). Using modern terminology (BALÁZS 1986), the former landforms correspond to the fenglin type of inselberg karst and the latter to the fengzong type of inselberg karst. Information collected on terrains of Middle Cretaceous rocks suggest that the fengzong type inselberg karst, being composed of compound structures with a common base (subsequently truncated to various degrees), is heavily dissected. The sizes and shapes of depressions between mountains shows great variation (VERESS 1998). Underground karst features The inventory and documentation (locality, access, size, properties of enclosing rock, spatial pattern) of caves in the Bakony (including the Northern Bakony) are initiated by BERTALAN (1935), who continued this work for decades (BERTALAN 1938,1943, 1955,1962, 1972, 1977; BERTALAN-SZOKOLSZKY 1935). He describes caves with open entrances. Most of them are karst features of various size in valley sides, cave remnants (see below) but vertically developed objects (avens or aven-like shafts) and ponors or ponor-like objects also occur in his inventory. In a separate work BERTALAN (1958) deals with caves of non-karstic origin in Hungary, including the main parameters of and references to non-karstic caves in the area of the Northern Bakony. Approximately in the same period, other authors also published papers on similar topics (FÖLDVÁRY 1933; JASKÓ 1936). In the 1960's and 1970's various cave exploration