Juan José Durán Valsero

Instituto Geológico y Minero de España | IGME · Department of Geological Resources

The alteration of marine sediments plays a key role in the global health of the seas as consequence of anthropogenic pollution in highly populated coastal areas. This research analyses the concentration and distribution of heavy metals in coastal and marine sediments of the Mediterranean Sea. Research has highlighted that Hg, Ni and Cu are present...

Guía del Espeleodía 2023 de Huelva, jornada en la que se realizó un itinerario siguiendo el ciclo del agua subterránea, desde que se infiltra en los afloramientos carbonáticos del Castillo de Aracena, llega a los acuíferos y forma paisajes endokársticos, como la Gruta de las Maravillas, hasta que sale por los manantiales, como el de la Peña de Aria...

WATER - Call for papers: Mountain Karst Aquifers Characterization You may send your manuscript now or up until the deadline (31 August 2023). For further reading, please follow the link to the Special Issue Website at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/water/special_issues/X6094Y130J

Climate Change, inherent to the planet, is amplifying due to greenhouse gas emissions. Among the most immediate effects has been determined an increase in the global average temperature, a change in the distribution of precipitation and a rise in sea level. This causes a negative impact on natural resources in general and on water resources in part...

Anthropogenic activities in urban, agrarian, or industrial areas are the main cause of heavy metals in sediments worldwide. Since the 1960s, there have been submarine discharges through outfalls of poorly treated or untreated wastewater on the south coast of Mallorca island (Mediterranean Sea). In this study, the pollution of marine sediments is an...

The present contribution compares the geomorphological characteristics of dolines developed in three different geological contexts in southern Spain: an evaporite tectonic melánge, a bare-carbonate massif, and an outcrop of inter-stratified sedimentary gypsum sequence. In the three cases, the closed depressions have been identified and mapped using...

The Sierra de Tendeñera is a mountain located in the Western Pyrenees, in the province of Huesca (Northern Spain). The maximum altitude is Pico Tendeñera, with 2845 m a.s.l., while the snow line is around 2600 m a.s.l. Both the landscape and a well-developed network of deep karst conduits are conditioned by the structural arrangement of a carbonate...

The Serrezuela de Carratraca Massif is a small carbonate massif located in the South of Spain. It corresponds to an outcrop of a geological unit formed by Triassic dolomitic marbles and limestones, belonging to the Alpujárride Complex of the Betic Cordillera. The surface of this karstic massif lacks well-developed exokarstic features, however, ther...

Careo channels are ancestral Nature-Based Solutions for water management that are used to recharge aquifers in the watershed of the Sierra Nevada Mountain massif (Spain). These hand-dug channels divert snowmelt from the headwaters of rivers and let it infiltrate into the upper parts of the hill slopes and by that increase the water resources availa...

Los satélites artificiales, tal y como se describe en este libro, están siendo claves para la monitorización de muchas variables físicas, climáticas y geoambientales, necesarias para poder entender qué está pasando, dónde está pasando y por qué está pasando, con respecto al cambio climático y los cambios globales asociados en el planeta Tierra, has...

In general, caves are geoenvironmental elements that are very sensitive to any atmospheric variation from the outside. However, the impact of global change on tourist caves has not been addressed from an applied perspective. Tourist caves are an excellent opportunity to study the impact of global change since, on the one hand, they are easily acces...

A key part of the geological divulgation carried out in show caves is the explanation of the speleogenesis (formation of the cave), as well as the chronological spatial and temporal ordering of the architectural elements that cover the caves, such as speleothems, detrital sediments, or the erosive morphologies themselves that are present in the cei...

Discovery of an exceptional assemblage of stegamites in a new cave that appeared inside a limestone quarry in La Araña, Málaga, Southern Spain

La Cueva del Estrecho, situada junto a la transitada autovía Madrid-Valencia, al noroeste de la localidad conquense de Villares del Saz, forma parte de un sistema de cavidades kársticas desarrolladas sobre las calizas cretácicas del anticlinal de la Sierra del Torreón. Se presenta en este trabajo el estudio geológico llevado a cabo en el conjunto d...

Una pieza fundamental de la divulgación geológica realizada en cuevas turísticas es la explicación de la espeleogénesis (formación de la cavidad), así como la ordenación espaciotemporal de los elementos arquitectónicos que las componen, tales como espeleotemas, rellenos detríticos o las propias morfologías erosivas que presentan los techos y las pa...

Film presentation of the new book published by scientists from the IGME-CSIC. This book talks about the importance of artificial satellites to understand the process of climate change on Earth.

The term Subsphere is a new proposal of environmental system that as part of the Earth. The subsphere can be define as a thin layer of the Earth of irregular dimensions located between the Earth's surface and the contact with the upper part of the lithosphere. It is made up of the units of geological materials and structures, pores, voids and caves...

Anthropogenic activities in the urban, agrarian, or industrial areas are the main cause of heavy metals in sediments worldwide. Since the 1960s there have been submarine discharges through outfalls of poorly treated or untreated wastewater on the south coast of Mallorca island (Mediterranean Sea). In this study, the pollution of marine sediments is...

Hydraulic conductivity (Ks ) is one of the most challenging, time-consuming, and expensive soil hydraulic properties to estimate. Pedotransfer functions (PTFs ) of general use for Ks estimation are often site and sample-scale specific and perform poorly when extrapolated to different regions and extents. The present work develops a stepwise methodo...

Closed depressions are scale-invariant landforms that are the most distinctive and characteristic landform in karst terrains at the millimetre-to-kilometre scales. The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first is to raise awareness of the geoheritage and geoeducational asset provided by closed depressions in a high-relief karst massif with the ob...

The acequias de careo are ancestral water channels excavated during the early Al-Andalus period (8th–10th centuries), which are used to recharge aquifers in the watersheds of the Sierra Nevada mountain range (Southeastern Spain). The water channels are maintained by local communities, and their main function is collecting snowmelt, but also runoff...

Saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) mapping is an application tool in many fields of science, technology, and land management. Hydrologically, Ks is the main factor controlling aquifer recharge, but it is one of the more difficult hydraulic properties of the soil to predict. This work develops a novel methodology for topsoil Ks mapping at the cat...

Dear Colleagues, High mountain zones are known as "water towers" because they generate the main water resources that feed the lowlands. Nevertheless, in these zones, surface runoff, which represents a large portion of precipitation, leaves the hydrological watersheds very fast. Mountain aquifers provide a strategic water resource to downstream depe...

La península de Yucatán es un lugar excepcional desde el punto de vista geológico. Posiblemente se trata de uno de los afloramientos de rocas carbonáticas tabulares más extensos del planeta (unos 125000 km2), que constituyen el acuífero kárstico más importante existente. La presencia en la superficie exokárstica de más de 10000 dolinas de colapso,...

The Malalmuerzo cave (Moclín, Granada, Spain) has been known since the 1980s for its archaeological remains and rock art, dated to the Neolithic and the Solutrean periods respectively. However, following thirty years of neglect, our team carried out a brief archaeological intervention after looters destroyed parts of the sediment fill of the cave....

This study aimed to evaluate the presence of ultraviolet filters (UV-Fs), benzotriazoles, pyrethroids and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in freshwater and wastewater from the northern Antarctic Peninsula region. All water samples analyzed contained UV-Fs residues and high concentrations were detected in anthropogenic impacted sites (<...

RESUMEN En la falda norte de Sierra Nevada nacen los ríos Alhorí, Bernal y Alcázar, cuyos cauces confluyen en las inmediaciones de localidad granadina de Jérez del Marquesado. Hasta hace pocos años, estas cuencas de alta montaña contaban con una densa red de acequias de careo, que consisten en canales excavados en el terreno que derivan el agua de...

Water Sowing and Harvesting (WS&H) consists of a series of ancestral procedures by which humans collect and infiltrate (sow) rainwater and runoff underground, so as to recover (harvest) it downgradient at some later time. This management of the water has made it possible for various regions of Ibero-America that is, Latin America plus the Iberian P...

Most of the people who visit the underground world, show caves and mines, have the experience of the average tourist. However, this experience can be much more interesting and rewarding if done properly. This is the purpose of this manual: to provide every underground tourist the proper tools to have a better visit to a show cave and to explore dee...

Diretrizes para que as cavernas turísticas brasileiras possam se adaptar enquanto perdurarem as consequências da pandemia da COVID-19, escrito com base no documento original da Associação Internacional de Cavernas Turísticas (ISCA) e adaptado para a realidade brasileira.

Water Sowing and Harvesting (WS&H) consists of a series of ancestral procedures by which humans collect and infiltrate (sow) rainwater and runoff underground, so as to recover (harvest) it downgradient at some later time. This management of the water has made it possible for various regions of Ibero-America that is, Latin America plus the Iberian P...

A series of recommendations are described below, which may be useful for show caves. All of them should be considered indicative and of voluntary application, based on the application of the Precautionary Principle. Most of them are general in nature and must be adapted to the local circumstances of each cave. Furthermore, they must be considered a...

El karst es un proceso de disolución de rocas que tarda en desarrollarse miles —e incluso millones— de años. Su naturaleza dinámica (compuesta por agua, roca y aire) se alía con el tiempo para crear paisajes que a veces parecen imposibles, una cuarta dimensión de la naturaleza. Con este libro podemos saber cómo es la génesis y el futuro del karst,...

El actual modelo de gestión del agua basado en el uso exclusivo de infraestructura gris (construida por el hombre) necesita de un nuevo enfoque que permita encarar los crecientes desafíos de seguridad hídrica que conllevan el aumento de la población y el cambio climático. La Comisión Europea está favoreciendo nuevos modelos de gestión del agua en l...

The artificial lighting of caves adapted for touristic visits, leads to the appearance and propagation of a complex community of phototrophic organisms known as “lampenflora”. Formed mainly by algae and cyanobacteria, they produce the degradation of the colonized substrates and decrease the show value of the caves. This phenomenon became famous wor...

In Sierra Nevada (southern Spain), the highest mountain range in southern Europe, the application of an ancestral Integrated Water Resources Management system (IWRM), based on the conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water, provides water resources for irrigation and supply in the driest months of the year in this semiarid mountain region. Me...

In the sea cliffs on the Mallorca Island, Western Mediterranean there are extensive outcrops of Upper Miocene carbonate rocks. On the Eastern coast of Mallorca, the reefal complex is overlain by a Messinian shallowwater carbonate complex. There are abundant Paleokarst collapse structures. The Santanyí Limestone beds are affected by V-incasion struc...

Para la determinación del parámetro ‘Superficie ocupada’ es necesario realizar un inventario de afloramientos. Numerosos grupos de espeleología e investigación españoles y extranjeros han desarrollado trabajos regionales en España desde principios del siglo pasado. Este inventario tiene la particularidad de que, debido a la naturaleza de las cavida...

La elevada heterogeneidad estructural de los acuíferos kársticos hace necesario un control riguroso de sus respuestas naturales y el empleo de diferentes metodologías de investigación para caracterizar su funcionamiento y evaluar los recursos hídricos subterráneos existentes. El presente trabajo muestra el diseño de la red de control hidrogeológico...

Abstract Cavities are very fragile media that permanently suffer pressures and threats, both on the surface and in the subsoil. Karstic cavities are the vadasa part of a karstic carbonate aquifer, so any incident on the surface will have repercussions on the vadosa zone and, subsequently, on the phreatic zone. At present, many possibilities are be...

Many features of a karst massif can either be modelled using fractal geometry or have a fractal distribution. For the exokarst, typical examples include the geometry of the landscape and the spatial location and size-distribution of karst depressions. Typical examples for the endokarst are the geometry of the three-dimensional network of karst cond...

El presente documento fue realizado en el marco del proyecto Establecimiento de un sistema estatal de seguimiento del Estado de Conservación de los Tipos de Hábitat en España, promovido y financiado por la Dirección General de Calidad y Evaluación Ambiental y Medio Natural del Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente, desarrollado e...

Abstract Monitoring the state of conservation of the caves is determined, above all, by the maintenance of the microclimate of the cavity. Parameter changes such as temperature, humidity, ventilation, CO2, radon, physical chemistry of the water (if any), among others, can affect to the development of the cavity in its forms and products. The factor...

La captación de agua subterránea ha sido una preocupación constante en la historia de la humanidad, bien documentada desde tiempos prehistóricos hasta la Edad Media, cuando se construyeron las grandes catedrales góticas españolas. Buena parte de nuestra geografía se encuentra salpicada de antiguas obras hidráulicas construidas para captar agua subt...

Las cuevas son ambientes muy conservativos que suelen mantener un registro sedimentario muy nítido. El estudio de sedimentos detríticos y de precipitación química, espeleotemas, en estos ambientes es una herramienta muy útil para determinar la evolución paleoambiental en sistemas de cavidades y, por ende, del funcionamiento paloehidrogeológico de u...

A mathematical model of a highly heterogeneous functioning karst aquifer is described. The aquifer is in a high-relief karst massif and, as is common for such locations, data are scarce and there are no borehole, piezometer or pumping-test data. The scarcity of data in this case required a parsimonious approach to ensure that the level of complexit...

El estudio de sedimentos detríticos y de precipitación química en cavidades es una herramienta muy útil como proxy del registro de cambios climáticos pasados y, por tanto, para la reconstrucción e interpretación paleoclimática de una región debido al carácter altamente conservativo de estos. En Sima Engañá (Sierra de las Nieves, SE de la Península...

The correct characterization of aquifer parameters is essential for water‐supply and water‐quality investigations. Slug tests are widely used for these purposes. While free software is available to interpret slug tests, some codes are not user‐friendly, or do not include a wide range of methods to interpret the results, or do not include automatic,...

In most high-mountain watersheds of Sierra Nevada, in southern Spain, there is a system of artificial recharge of aquifers that has been in operation at least since the Middle Age. In the upper part of the basins meltwater is derived towards a few uncoated channels dug in the ground which are known as“acequias de careo”. Meltwater flowing through t...

223 C. Baquedano Estévez, et al., 2018. La lucha contra el mal verde en las cuevas turísticas españolas. En: P.A. Robledo y J.J. Durán (Eds.), Cuevas: la flecha del tiempo, de la prehistoria a la actualidad. Asociación de Cuevas Turísticas Españolas, pp. 223-234. Since its opening and conditioning for the visit, the majority of Spanish show caves...

Caves are not only beautiful underground landscapes but they also are natural labs available to research where the visitor can learn technical concepts that usually are familiar to the expert only. In this sense it is interesting to think if caves are a random labyrinth of passages or there is some hidden pattern that can be discovered by certain m...

The gemorphological studies are a little frequent in caves in general and in show caves in particular, although this could be very useful and important to scientific works as well as to protect and conserve this type of environment. In this work we describe a gemorphological study in the s’Aigo show cave, Cala Blanca, (Menorca Island). The methodol...

The appearance and spread of algae and cyanobacteria commonly referred to as “Lampenflora” in show caves, represents a serious problem for both managers and the environment due to the alterations it produces in the substrate and/or speleothems. Over time, different methods for removing biofilms using chemical products have been tested. The aim of t...

Resumen En las partes altas de Sierra Nevada (sur de España) se realiza, desde época andalusí (Edad Media), un Sistema Integrado de Gestión del Agua Subterránea, en el que las acequias de careo constituyen un elemento clave. Estos canales excavados en el terreno están diseñados para recargar las aguas procedentes del deshielo, a lo largo de su reco...

Human presence in the Antarctic is increasing due to research activities and the rise in tourism. These activities contribute a number of potentially hazardous substances. The aim of this study is to conduct the first characterisation of the pharmaceuticals and recreational drugs present in the northern Antarctic Peninsula region, and to assess the...

The Sierra Gorda aquifer is one of the most extensive of southern Spain. The main groundwater discharge is produced at its northern boundary through several high-flow springs. In this study, stable isotopes of dissolved sulfate (δ34S and δ18O) and groundwater chemistry were used to determine the origin of the sulfate and to characterize the groundw...

Both Moon and Sun induce Earth tides. Signatures of the Earth’s crustal tides could be recorded in the groundwater in the form of rise and fall of its piezometric surface. In relationship with this phenomenon, there is a scarcity of these kinds of studies in carbonate aquifers. Spectral analysis has been applied in Sierra Gorda aquifer located in t...

The Sierra de las Nieves karst aquifer (Southern Spain) is a Mediterranean high-relief karst with an important geological, geomorphological, hydrogeological and ecological value. It has a spectacular landscape and a well-developed endokarst, as well as a number of important karst springs that are the origin of three important rivers in the region....

The main objective of this study is to perform an initial diagnosis of the presence of nitrates in carbonate-rock aquifers in the Iberian Peninsula and identify the likely sources. Geostatistical methods were employed for TOC (Total Organic Carbon) mapping the studied area. The geostatistical method of spatial estimation, known as kriging, takes in...

The availability of high-resolution digital elevation models (DEM) has increased the possibilities of geomorphometric analysis of karst terrains. Apart from the classical terrain parameters (distribution of elevations, slopes, orientations, curvature, etc.), there have been developments of new algorithms that expand further the possibilities of num...

San Nicolás Health Spa is located in the town of Alhama de Almería, on the northern slope of the Sierra de Gádor, province of Almeria, South-East of Spain. Is a spa of water hot of long historical tradition, as evidenced some of them Roman and Arab remains found. The supply of water to bathrooms came originally of a natural spring. In the year 1552...

El Río Subterráneo en las Grutas de Sant Josep está situado en el Parque Natural de la Sierra de Espadán, en La Vall d’Uixó, provincia de Castellón. Se trata de uno de los ríos subterráneos navegables más largos de Europa, con una longitud de 2750 m, de los cuales 800 m corresponden al recorrido turístico. Las Grutas de Sant Josep constituyen un ej...

La Sierra del Mencal es un promontorio aislado constituido por rocas carbonáticas jurásicas, que se sitúa al N de la Depresión de Guadix (provincia de Granada, S de España), rodeado de sedimentos detríticos pliocenos y pleistocenos que solapan sus bordes. En su ladera S se localiza una interesante sima kárstica cuya boca se encuentra a 946 m s.n.m....

El Río Subterráneo en las Grutas de Sant Josep está situado en el Parque Natural de la Sierra de Espadán, en La Vall d’Uixó, provincia de Castellón. Se trata de uno de los ríos subterráneos navegables más largos de Europa, con una longitud de 2750 m, de los cuales 800 m corresponden al recorrido turístico. Las Grutas de Sant Josep constituyen un ej...

La Sierra del Mencal es un promontorio aislado constituido por rocas carbonáticas jurásicas, que se sitúa al N de la Depresión de Guadix (provincia de Granada, S de España), rodeado de sedimentos detríticos pliocenos y pleistocenos que solapan sus bordes. En su ladera S se localiza una interesante sima kárstica cuya boca se encuentra a 946 m s.n.m....