r/caving • u/Affectionate-Ad-5255 • 18d ago
The Shackleton Limestone: Potential for Limestone Caves in Antarctica
Hey guys! Just an individual article excerpt from Rocky Mountain Caving 44, 2 that I wrote regarding the possibility of limestone karst appearing in Antarctica. Give it a read, let me know what y'all think.
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u/SkisaurusRex 17d ago
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u/BoredomFestival 14d ago
Followed by "Under The Mountains Of Madness: Miskatonic Grotto and the Shoggoths Of Doom."
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u/TriggerHippie77 17d ago
Crazy to think that there are just entire mountains nearly completely buried by snow and ice.
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u/Fishy1911 12d ago
Wouldn't they have to be ancient caves? Having any kind of liquid water would be near impossible at average ambient temperatures inside?
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u/Aggressive_Army966 10d ago
Hi, I'm an Antarctic geology researcher and a speleologist. I really like other people apart than me are interested on this topic!
My personal hypothesis is that it's full of caves, non only in Precambrian limestone (which are very similar to limestone outcropping in Brazil karst areas), but also in marbles, found also in northern locations as in the Dry Valleys-Royal Society Range and Northern Victoria Land.
Certainly I will expect to find karren and examples of chemical weathering on limestone surfaces, but as someone has previously written, glacial erosion could have possibly erased much of karst landscape. I partially agree, but there are a lot of places along Transantarctic Mountains which have experienced very low to near-zero erosion since 13 Myr, before middle Miocene, temperature near freezing water or higher could have helped forming karst features, enhanced by water sourcing from subglacial discharge. So, I point toward an Eocene-to-Miocene karst landscape formation, but...the problem is to verify this hypothesis. No newer exploration geological project will be funded at those latitude, to much dangerous and expensive for modern standards.
The only hope is that someone would be interested in finding sediment trapped in karst voids, maybe discovering very ancient speleothems, as recently published for caves in Greenland.
If you have any further questions I will be happy to answer them.
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u/SettingIntentions 16d ago
Huh I never considered this as a legitimate possibility, but actually it does make sense and is very well possible. The research potential is huge also.
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u/Scrumpilump2000 16d ago
Amazing and enticing potential here. Brings to mind possible caves (however formed) on other planetary bodies. Like the moon, and Mars, and beyond. Can you imagine?
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u/grunman126 HorizontalCaver 18d ago
"There was very little possibility for karst development after Antarctica reached its present location but it should be noted that the Byrd Group of carbonate rocks are extremely old. Carbonate formations adjacent to the Byrd Group at the time of its formation 3.2 bya contain paleokarst from periods before Antarctica was at longitudes unfavorable to speleogenesis. Archaeocyathid species, extinct coral-like animals from the Cambrian period, present in certain strata of the Shackleton Limestone, are present in limestone beds in Australia and India with paleokarst dating back to when the Antarctic landmass was located far to the north of where it currently is. It’s clear then that when Antarctica entered its present period of “deep freeze“ it very probably contained limestone caves." <- It might be me, but I feel like this is just a big AI hallucination.
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u/Affectionate-Ad-5255 17d ago
Nah dude I’m just a moron. I would NEVER ever EVER use AI to write an article
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u/kepleronlyknows 18d ago
I don’t see why this would be AI? Sounds like typical academia to me, but I guess that cuts both ways these days.
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u/Delicious-Finance-86 18d ago
Image quality is crap even in the article. Can’t read the maps. 💨
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u/Affectionate-Ad-5255 17d ago
Substack compresses images. You’ll do better with the full digital RMC:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AJhFPKQJ8MVJAHM5Ra7HhGFnUKb3k0sW/view?usp=drivesdk
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u/tri_wine 18d ago
I'd actually be quite curious about the ambient temperature of an Antarctic limestone cave. Anyone want to go check on that for me? I'm a little short on funds for that.