This paper presents a comparative study of the Ardeche Gorge Natural Reserve (France) and the Skocjan Caves Regional Park (Slovenia). As major tourist attractions, both these areas have progressively ...structured their economies around tourism, although they have implemented very different development and karst landscape protection policies. In very simplistic terms, management of the Ardeche Gorge can be described as very laxest, whereas development in the Skocjan Caves is much more strictly controlled. When examined from this preservation/development perspective, the differences in the ways the two sites are managed can be traced through a diachronic approach to the history of their tourism development. In fine, this comparative approach illustrates how two processes between tourism and preservation policies structure territories development on karst areas.
Three times Martel visited karst in Carniola: in 1879, 1893 and 1896. The importance of his visits and later publications lies in fact that he informed the francophone public about our karst and ...caves; his visit stimulated the introduction of new technical means into the then Austrian speleology (folding boat, portable telephone); in 1893 due to his researches Postojnska jama became the longest cave in Europe; public found out about existence of caving society Anthron, which was the first Slovene and Slav society of the kind; he set up the foundations of international speleological co-operation and included into it Austrian speleologists; he informed the public about Putick and his researches of karst underground; unknowingly he helped to introduce the term “karst” into francophone public.
There have been fewer researchers looking for initial flow paths along karst bedding-planes than those who deduced the origin of cave channels from tectonic structures. The aim of my research was to ...focus scientific attention on the lithology where answers might be expected. The study has conformed that the basic idea of bedding-planes being important in the initiation of cave channels but also has shown that the interrelation is different to what had been supposed. Single lithological, petrological or stratigraphical parameters of the inception are only partly known, or merely guessed. My researches threw light on the problem of initial channels met in the Velika Dolina collapse doline at Škocjanske Jame caves. Cave passages or their fragments and other traces of the underground karstification do not appear scattered at random on the walls of the doline but they are obviously gathered along small number of so calledformative bedding-planes.The basic working method was to locate the phreatic channels or their fragments, and to sample and examine microscopically those parts of the layers adjacent to a bedding-plane. Sometimes a whole layer was considered. Other methods were: examination of the regional distribution of caves; photographing and classifying speleogens; and complexometry, to measure the purity of limestones.The initial channels are practically all gathered along only three formative bedding-planes, out of the 62 measured (less than 5%). Their close vicinity differs from the others in several important properties, including typically damaged rock, a higher level of calcium carbonate content, and smaller porosity. Consequently this localization cannot possibly be only apparent.It was identified that, at least in respect of the particular example of Velika Dolina collapse doline, inception started along inter-bed movement that without doubt pushed the beds aside leaving a gap.
Cet article présente les caractéristiques de la rivière souterraine Reka dans la grotte de Skocjanske, la surface du karst et leur impact sur la formations des concrétionnements (roche, tectonique, ...eau de percolation, surface, climat actuel). Les coulées stalagmitiques et leur dépôt sont traités en détail en essayant de montrer leur relations avec les changements climatiques.
