Consider the following statements about the Karst topography: Highly f...
The correct answer is option 'A': 1 only.
Explanation:
Karst topography is a unique type of landscape characterized by underground drainage systems, caves, sinkholes, and other karst features. It is primarily formed in areas with soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. Let's analyze each statement given in the question:
1. Highly fractured or folded limestone beds is one of the primary requirements for its development.
- This statement is correct. Karst topography requires highly fractured or folded limestone beds for its development. Limestone is a sedimentary rock that is easily dissolved by water, especially when it is fractured or folded. The presence of fractures or folds allows water to penetrate into the rock, leading to the formation of underground drainage systems and other karst features.
2. It is also called as badlands topography.
- This statement is incorrect. Karst topography is not known as badlands topography. Badlands topography refers to a different type of landscape characterized by rugged, highly eroded hills or ridges with steep slopes. It is typically formed in arid or semi-arid regions with soft, easily eroded sedimentary rocks.
3. Stalactites and stalagmites are its erosional landforms.
- This statement is incorrect. Stalactites and stalagmites are not erosional landforms of karst topography but are instead depositional landforms. They are formed in caves through the deposition of calcium carbonate (calcite) minerals from dripping water. Stalactites hang from the ceiling of caves, while stalagmites grow upward from the cave floor.
In conclusion, only statement 1 is correct. Karst topography requires highly fractured or folded limestone beds for its development. It is not called badlands topography, and stalactites and stalagmites are depositional landforms found within caves, not erosional landforms of karst topography.
Consider the following statements about the Karst topography: Highly f...
- A region with a large stretch of limestone possesses a very distinct type of topography. It is termed a karst region, a name derived from the Karst district of Yugoslavia where such topography is particularly well developed.
- The following conditions alone favour the development of true karst topography :
- The limestones must be massive, thickly bedded, hard and tenaceous, well cemented and well jointed (high density of joints).
- Limestones should not be porous wherein permeability is largely controlled by joints and not by the mass of rocks because if limestones are porous, the water may pass through the rock mass and thus whole rock mass will become weak and will collapse. On the other hand, if limestones are non-porous and thickly bedded, water will infiltrate through joints resulting into effective corrosion of limestones along the joints and solution holes would be formed.
- The position of limestones should be above the groundwater table so that surface drainage may disappear through sinks, blind valleys and sinking creeks to have subterranean (subsurface) drainage so that cave, passages and galleries and associated features may be formed.
- The limestones should be widely distributed in both areal and vertical dimensions.
- The carbonate rocks should be very close to the ground surface so that rainwater may easily and quickly infiltrate into the beds of limestones and may corrode the rocks to form solutional landforms.
- The limestones should be highly folded, fractured or faulted. Hence statement 1 is correct.
- There should be enough rainfall so that required amount of water is available to dissolve carbonate rocks.
- The most spectacular underground features that adorn the limestone caves are stalactites, stalagmites and pillars. These are depositional landforms. Hence statement 3 is not correct.
- Stalactites are the sharp, slender, downward-growing pinnacles that hang from the cave-roofs. The water carries calcium in solution and when this lime-charged water evaporates, it leaves behind the solidified crystalline calcium carbonate. As moisture drips from the roof it trickles down the stalactite and drops to the floor where calcium is deposited to form stalagmites.
- They are shorter, fatter and more rounded. Over a long period, the stalactite hanging from the roof is eventually joined to the stalagmite growing from the floor to form a pillar.
- Badlands topography is a major feature of the Chambal valley is characterized by an undulating floodplain, gullies and ravines. Hence statement 2 is not correct.
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