Landscape evolution and the karst development in the Ojo Guareña multilevel cave system (Merindad de Sotoscueva, Burgos, Spain)

Abstract

The Ojo Guareña karst system (OG) is located in the SE Cantabrian Range in northern Spain (Burgos, Spain). It is a multilevel cave system composed of 6 levels and is one of the longest cavities in the Iberian Peninsula (110 km). The spatial patterns and geomorphological characteristics of OG constitute a first-order record for studying the principal mechanisms of how the karst evolved by reconstruction and analysis of the external landscape. This extended karst system is attributed to the action of the local drainage system driven by Quaternary climatic fluctuations and lithological-structural controls. To contribute to this debate, we performed a detailed geomorphological mapping of this area (1:25,000 scale), differentiating the landforms according to the main geomorphological processes (structural, gravity, fluvial, glacial, weathering and polygenetic) involved. These datasets were used to draw a detailed geomorphological map and give a preliminary interpretation of the local landscape evolution.