Karst : from palaeogeographic archives to environmental indicators

Abstract : The underground parts of karst systems are of great palaeogeographic and paleoenvironmental interest. They provide information on past landscape whereas surface evidence might have completely disappeared. As detrital and chemical karst infillings reflect the contemporary environmental dynamics, it is possible for example to use Holocene deposits to differentiate anthropogenic and natural factors of change. The present paper provides a review of karst analysis methods and resulting palaeoenvironmental informations, based on French and Chinese studies. Different methodologies have been developed to evaluate environmental changes over long periods of time and determine accurate chronologies for shorter periods, as the Holocene epoch or the last millennium. In order to improve our interpretation of the karst record, research is going on to study the local, regional and global influences they have on it.