06/09/2026
Karst and the upper Green River--it is hard to talk about one and not the other and it is one of the reasons for the uniqueness of our Green River.....
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KARST! What a fun word...but what DOES it mean?
Karst is a type of landscape formed by the dissolution of rock.
Yes, literally WATER dissolving ROCK! It takes a long time, and the water chemistry and environment have to be right, as well as the correct rock type, but together these magical environments create an interconnected web of water.
The way water moves through the ground in karst environments is much more complicated than surface water, or non-karst areas. Water wants to take the path of least resistance, so it will flow through large conduits (Read: CAVES) faster than it does the porosity of the rock and sediment. It also means, because of the complex combination of soluble rock with sediment and other layers, water can move either very fast or take 1000s of years to move through the ground.
The water will carry with it various things from the surface. It can take minerals dissolved in the water, which create the fun colors of speleothems we see in caves, but it can also carry harmful things. Bacteria, virus, trash, septic runoff, fertilizers, pesticides, that old oil leaking onto your gravel driveway from your car.... it can ALL use these karst conduits to move through the ground and into our water table: OUR DRINKING WATER.
What does that mean? Even if you aren't a caver or cave connoisseur, YOUR health can be impacted by what your neighbors, even miles away and/or centuries ago, dumped onto their ground. Whether you enjoy exploring caves or not they impact you. And while historically karst was poorly understood and sinkholes were mistaken as the perfect place to get rid of junk, that doesn't exempt us from the impacts today.
Let's all think together and help protect these special environments, because what someone does on their land isn't constrained to theirs alone.
