Out of more than 200 caves, which are found on Matarsko podolje, Pečina v Zjatih was chosen for a detailed research of its genesis. This cave is found on the SW of Matarsko podolje, several km north of the village Skadanščina. The cave was formed in phreatic, epiphreatic, and vadose conditions in slightly bituminous Albian-Cenomanian limestone and is currently in decay phase. Water no longer flows through it. The cave entrance is a collapse doline, which has caused an intrusion of outside climatic conditions, which have destroyed most of the cave’s original features. At the entrance, ceiling breakdown has caused the formation of a cryoclastic slope, which extends to the middle part of the cave. The interior of the cave is represented by a main passage, which was first formed in phreatic conditions along an inception horizon. Later on, the water with abrasive flysch material from Brkini hills carved a canyon into the bottom of the phreatic passage.
The focus of this thesis are inception horizons, which are located at the entrance of Pečina v Zjatih. Inception horizons are bedding planes, where dissolution of limestone first takes place, due to favourable lithological, physical and geochemical properties of beds above and below them. Inception horizons were identified by phreatic channels, which have formed along them, and flowstone, which has covered the beds below them. In a laboratory, I have identified microfacies of beds above and below inception horizons and I have performed both the XRF and LOI analysis of those beds. For more representative results I have also analysed beds above and below those bedding planes, which show no signs of dissultion. With structural mapping of dolines I have identified three faults, which had an impact on the cave's orientation and the formation of surface karst features.
Results show that inception horizons at the cave’s entrance are mostly associated with bioclastic wackestone and mudstone to wackestone with bioclasts. Both microfacies have organic matter and they appear in other parts of the cave’s entrance. However, organic matter in both microfacies is much higher along the inception horizons than anywhere else. Therefore, I assume that organic matter had a big influence on the formation of inception horizons. During oxidation it probably caused the formation of aggressive acids, which were able to dissolve the rock much faster than the carbonic acid, which is usually present in the water.
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