Max P Cooper

Lunasonde

We develop methods for qualitative and quantitative assessment of pore geometry transformation within a rock as a result of karstification. We then apply these tools to characterize dissolution-induced changes in limestone samples collected from a quarry in Smerdyna (Poland), where intense epikarst development is observed, consisting of a large num...

We develop methods for qualitative and quantitative assessment of the transformation of pore geometry of a rock as a result of karstification.

In this work we have investigated numerically the formation of channelised dissolution patterns, termed "wormholes", using initial pore geometries generated from tomographic images of limestone cores. We have employed an OpenFOAM-based Darcy-scale numerical solver, porousFoam, which combines a Darcy/Darcy-Brinkman flow solver and a reactive transpo...

Dissolution of porous media is a complex process involving nonlinear couplings between flow, transport, the evolving geometry of the media, and the process of dissolution itself. In some cases these couplings lead to the formation of intricate patterns, the characteristics of which depend strongly on flow, mineral dissolution rate, and initial pore...

Deposits within caves are often used to interpret past landscape evolution and climate conditions. However, cave passage shapes also preserve information about past conditions. Despite the usefulness of passage shape, no previous models simulate cave cross‐section evolution in a realistic manner. Here we develop a model for evolving cave passage cr...

Chemical erosion of porous media is a complex process involving the interplay between flow, transport, reaction, and geometry evolution. Nonlinear coupling between these processes may lead to the formation of intricate patterns, the characteristics of which depend strongly on flow and mineral dissolution rates. In particular, in a broad range of ph...

The dissolution of highly soluble minerals and rocks produces macro-scale features such as caves, and micro-scale features such as wormholes, the shape of which depends on reaction kinetics. Despite numerous studies on gypsum dissolution, a wide range of kinetic constants have been obtained, spanning several orders of magnitude. This discrepancy ca...

Direct measurements of CO2 concentrations and CO2 fluxes are fundamental in characterizing pathways and rates of carbon exchange within Earth’s Critical Zone. These data are also paramount in validating land-atmosphere modeling approaches. As feedbacks between environmental factors and carbon pools may be non-linear and occur over a range of time-s...

Pseudokarst caves form by fluid flow (rheogenic—lava tubes and glacier caves); particle disarticulation (suffusion or piping caves, tafoni); by large-scale rock failure (fracture or crevice caves), and by the results of that failure (talus caves); and by coastal processes (littoral or sea caves). The Northeast contains all these pseudokarst cave ty...

Flat-lying Ordovician limestones form a band around the Adirondack Mountains, separating the Grenville marble caves of those mountains from the caves developed in Cambro-Ordovician marbles to the east and southeast, and from caves in Siluro-Devonian carbonates to the south (deformed) and southwest (undeformed). This cave region is understudied and...

The Siluro-Devonian Helderberg Group carbonates and the mid-Devonian Onondaga Limestone of the Hudson River Valley were highly deformed by the Acadian Orogeny, which limited subsequent outcrop extent and catchment. Glaciation overprinted the tectonic structure and obliterated, modified, and engendered cave development. Ice movement was north to sou...

The modern scientific study of glaciation, speleogenesis and karst development began in New York in the 1960s and 1970s, with major contributions from Vic Baker, Steve Egemeier, Ernst Kastning, John Mylroie, and Arthur and Margaret Palmer, all working in the Helderberg Plateau of central New York. They demonstrated that large, pre-glacial cave syst...

The Adirondack Mountains are the youngest mountain range in the northeastern US and are still doming, although they are made of the oldest rocks found in that region. The 1.1 Ga-old Grenville Marble hosts the dissolutional caves, which appear to be primarily post-glacial in origin, although the complexity of some caves (Crane Mountain), or large pa...

The geology of the northeastern Unites States begins with the late Mesoproterozoic, over 1 billion years ago, when the Grenville suite of metamorphics (including the Grenville Marble) of the Adirondack Mountains was formed during the assembly of the supercontinent of Rodinia. Cambrian and early Ordovician carbonates, along with clastics, were depos...

Dissolutional cave development in the New England and eastern New York area is primarily in Cambro-Ordovician marbles that extend in a north-south band along the western boundary of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont, and similarly in the eastern-most portion of New York. Some Precambrian marbles, and some Ordovician carbonates are also found...

The longest and largest caves of the northeastern region (Barrack Zourie Cave, Howe Caverns, McFails Cave, Skull Cave and Thunder Hole) are found in the Helderberg Plateau of central New York. Broad areal exposure of Helderberg Group limestones, gentle dip SSW at 1°–2°, and down-dip incision of those limestones by surface drainage has created a hyd...

Focusing on glaciation and speleogenesis in the region of New York and New England, this book serves as an example of a karst region that has experienced large-scale continental glaciation. It reviews the literature on the controls of glaciation on karst development, exploring examples from the marbles of the Adirondacks, New England and eastern Ne...

Opposing assumptions have been made in modeling the evolution of stream and cave channels. Models of surface channel evolution have typically neglected dissolution, and models of cave formation have not considered mechanical erosion. After early development of cave channels, sediment can be transported by turbulent flow. This sediment can mechanica...

Models proposed by Ollier and Tratman (1969), Mylroie and Carew (1987) and Faulkner (2009a) variously hypothesize that a cave is post-glacial if it is controlled by glacially deranged drainage and contains no pre-Holocene signatures. Results of tests on these models have rarely appeared in subsequent literature. Epigenetic maze caves are a type of...

Caves in glaciated regions were originally thought to be predominantly post-glacial in age. Work from the 1970s through today showed survival of pre-glacial cave systems in these regions via agreement with pre-glacial dendritic drainage and base levels, presence of passages of large cross-sectional area, sequences of glacially derived sediment, and...