Karstic and morphogenic phases in the Endrinal Mountains (Grazalema, Cádiz)

Abstract

The geomorphological observations made until now reveal a long morphogenic history for the karst of the Endrinal mountains, going back to pre-Quaternary times. The erosion surfaces mapped (SA, SB and SC) have a Quaternary biostatic genesis and are linked to humid media with forest cover, favouring carbonation below a karst cover. The relationship between speleothems and geomorphology seems to indicate that surfaces SA and SB are basal surfaces of weathering, with biostatic genesis, which would remain active from at least 270 ky BP (Middle Pleistocene), with a period of intense carbonation during the isotopic states 6 and 5 between 150 and 90 ky BP. Surface SC, of recent genesis (<30 ky BP or Late Pleistocene to Holocene), is the result of a general biostatic situation, with climatic and antropogenic rhexistatic disturbances that have movilized, under the action of water flow and gravity, the detritus and regoliths generated in previous epochs.