Natural Sciences in the Caves of Turkey

Abstract

Karstic lands cover the %40 of the total area of Turkey. Examination of these areas situated in the Alpine–Himalayan Orogenic Belt plays a key role in shedding a light on the tectonic evolution of this huge area that elongates from Europe to Asia, besides the tectonic evolution of Turkey. The research of the karstic lands exerts a great importance for the urban policies within the cities and villages settled in these geological regions, in order to require rigorous approaches to the engineering problems during the stages such as road and freshwater system construction or wastewater treatment. The most well-known karstic formations and caves exert a great impact on the development of landscapes as underground drains, since caves have been investigated in the context of geomorphological setting, lithology and geologic structure, groundwater chemistry and hydrology, aquifer type as well as regional tectonics, climate research, biology, microbiology, and in-cave environmental conditions. The historical background of the particular research for each selected caves from Turkey is given in Chap. 4 of this book. As comprehensively treated in Chap. 2, the state of the art in cave archaeology was excluded from the contents of this chapter.