The paper presents a study of the anisotropic properties of the karst surface through the use of semivariograms. Karst is formed by hydrogeological and tectonic deformations that determine the ...surface and subsurface characteristics of the area. Among the most prominent surface features are dolines, which generally form in a linear direction. Semivariograms can be used to determine both the preferred direction of anisotropy and the degree of anisotropy. The surface exhibits the greatest elevation variability in the direction of the most diverse terrain, corresponding to dolines. The results, based on the eight karst areas studied, show that it is possible to detect and, more importantly, quantify anisotropy in all karst areas, although in some cases it is impossible or difficult to detect visually. The directions of the semivariograms agree very well with those obtained from the visual inspection of the maps, as well as with the orientations of the main faults. The method is therefore very useful for quantitative determination of anisotropy and its interpretation could be greatly improved by using the detailed structural geological maps of the karst.
Jama leži v Matarskem podolju, v SZ delu Slovenije. Okolico sestavljajo apnenci ter apnenčaste breče kredne starosti. Njen vhodni del je udornega nastanka in leži v večji vrtači, jama pa se konča s ...podorom pod drugo vrtačo. Nad osrednjim delom jame je tudi manjša vrtača; posledica je, da je v tem delu obilnejša siga. Očitne so poškodbe zaradi zmrzali, ki segajo globoko v jamo; v vhodnem delu so značilni pojavi plazenja krioklastičnega grušča. Jama je sprva nastajala v freatčnih, nato pa v epifreatičnih pogojih. Izračunan nekdanji pretok kaže na veliko količino vode. Cave lies in Matarsko podolje, in southwestern part of Slovenia. Surrounding beds are composed of limestones and limestone breccias of Cretaceous age. In the vicinity there are many dolines and collapse dolines. The entrance and final part of the cave are situated directly under the big dolines. Because of the small doline, which can be found above the middle part of the cave, there are many flowstone features. Obvious damages due to the freezing and thawing are found along the most part of the cave, at the entrance there is a lot of cryoclastic gravel. Cave began to form in phreatic and later in epiphreatic conditions. Palaeoflow discharge indicates great amount of water.
The northern slopes of the Vipava Valley are defined by a thrust front of Mesozoic carbonates over Tertiary flysch deposits. These slopes are characterized by a variety of different surface forms, ...among which recent and fossil polygenetic landslides are the most prominent mass movements. We used the height variability method as a morphometric indicator, which proved to be the most useful among the various methods for quantifying and visualizing fossil landslides. Height variability is based on the difference in elevations derived from a high-resolution lidar-derived DEM. Based on geologic field mapping and geomorphometric analysis, we distinguished two main types of movements: structurally induced movement along the fault zone and movements caused by complex Quaternary gravitational slope processes. The most pronounced element is the sliding of the huge rotational carbonate massif, which was displaced partly along older fault structures in the hinterland of fossil rock avalanches and carbonate blocks. In addition to the material properties of the lithology, the level of surface roughness also depends on the depositional processes of the individual sedimentary bodies. These were formed by complex sedimentary events and are intertwined in the geological past. The sedimentary bodies indicate two large fossil rock avalanches, while the smaller gravity blocks indicate translational–rotational slides of carbonate and carbonate breccia.
This study presents a simulation of potential changes in groundwater in three wells within a Quaternary gravel aquifer in the city of Ljubljana when groundwater cooled by about 4 °C is reinjected ...into it. The research focuses on the mass transport of calcite in the vicinity of boreholes. According to our results, the impact of the changes in the geochemical composition of the water is relatively small (around 1%). Although the waters are approximately in equilibrium, calcite may be dissolved and sometimes precipitated within the aquifer when cooled water is reinjected into it. The amounts of precipitated calcite always decrease with decreasing temperatures of the reinjected water, which can lead to calcite dissolution if the temperature difference is large enough and the water is only slightly oversaturated. This novel finding is significant since previously published studies have mostly focused on understanding the scaling (precipitation) of calcite and not its dissolution. The mass transfer of calcite is relatively low, but in a scenario of long-term pumping for several years, such low values could lead to a dissolved or precipitated mass of several hundreds of kilograms of calcite per year (at a pumping rate of 46 L/s).
Seventy-one pumping tests were carried out in various dolomites, revealing two of the less-studied hydrogeological parameters related to double-porosity flow: the interporosity flow coefficient λ and ...the ratio between storage in the fractures and storage in the whole system (ω). Conceptually, they are both tied to the flow properties of the fractures and matrix and define the communication between these two hydrogeological domains. Five different groups of dolomites were included in this study, with different diagenesis types, crystal sizes, bed thicknesses, fracture intensities and chert contents represented. The results of both parameters reflect variations in the sedimentological and resulting hydrogeological properties of dolomites. The largest values of the interporosity flow coefficient λ (6.53 × 10−1) are found in dolomites formed by late diagenesis, exhibiting the highest degree of fracturing, resulting in fast responses in fractures and large λ values. The values of the storage ratio ω also vary (the range of most values is from 3.32 × 10−4 to 2.14 × 10−1), with the overall range almost completely filling all the theoretical limits from zero to one. The greatest values of ω are found in dolomites with the largest storage, due to the large number of small fractures, and silica diagenesis probably reduces the matrix storage. The correlations among the parameters show some significant relationships, especially between λ and Km, λ and Sf, ω and Sf, and ω and Sm.
Automatic landslide classification based on digital elevation models has become a powerful complementary tool to field mapping. Many studies focus on the automatic classification of landslides’ ...geomorphological features, such as their steep main scarps, but in many cases, the scarps and other morphological features are difficult for algorithms to detect. In this study, we performed an automatic classification of different litho-geomorphological units to differentiate slope mass movements in field maps by using Maximum Likelihood Classification. The classification was based on high-resolution lidar-derived DEM of the Vipava Valley, SW Slovenia. The results show an improvement over previous approaches as we used a blended image (VAT, which included four different raster layers with different weights) along with other common raster layers for morphometric analysis of the surface (e.g., slope, elevation, aspect, TRI, curvature, etc.). The newly created map showed better classification of the five classes we used in the study and recognizes alluvial deposits, carbonate cliffs (including landslide scarps), carbonate plateaus, flysch, and slope deposits better than previous studies. Multivariate statistics recognized the VAT layer as the most important layer with the highest eigenvalues, and when combined with Aspect and Elevation layers, it explained 90% of the total variance. The paper also discusses the correlations between the different layers and which layers are better suited for certain geomorphological surface analyses.
Matarsko podolje, in SW Slovenia, is a karstic surface with many dolines, which appear between the flysch-composed Brkini hills in the NE and Mt. Slavnik in the SW. We have analyzed dolines to find ...the morphometric parameters of the depth, area, volume, and circularity index and also calculated the doline density and pitting index. All parameters were also calculated separately for individual lithological units to explain the variations of the calculated values among these groups. Morphometry was performed in GIS environment on a 1 × 1 m digital elevation model with bare earth obtained by lidar. The results show a high density of dolines (94 dolines/km
2
) and also a high pitting index (
R
p
= 8.27) compared to other studies. There are some significant differences between the measured values in individual lithologies, as the depths, areas, and volumes are largest in dolomitic beds (other beds include various types of limestones and carbonate breccia). The median values of depth, area, and volume are 2.98 m, 541 m
2
, and 690 m
3
. The circularity index is also lowest in dolomite beds and Kozina limestones; however, the differences are not so pronounced as for areas and volumes. Dolines’ longer axes are parallel to the directions of major structural elements; however, more detailed mapping should be done to confirm the influence of faults and fracture zones on the doline geometry.
Hillshaded digital elevation models are a well-known information layer used to determine the geomorphological properties of landslides. However, their use is limited because the results are dependent ...on a particular sun azimuth and elevation. Approaches proposed to overcome this bias include positive openness, sky-view factor, red relief image maps, and prismatic openness. We propose an upgrade to all these methods, a method named Visualization for Archaeological Topography (VAT). The method is based on a fusion of four information layers into a single image (hillshaded terrain, slope, positive openness, and sky-view factor). VAT can be used to enhance visibility of features of varied scale, height, orientation, and form that sit on terrain ranging from extremely flat to very steep. Besides this, the merits of VAT are that the results are comparable across diverse geographical areas. We have successfully tested the method for landslide recognition and analysis in five different areas in the Vipava Valley (SW Slovenia). Geomorphology of the area is very diverse and holds various types of mass movements. In contrast to classical hillshaded digital elevation models (DEMs), the geomorphological features of landslides obtained by the VAT method are very clearly seen in all studied mass movements.
In the Vipava Valley (SW Slovenia), various types of mass movements occur in a geologically and geomorphologically diverse setting. These comprise various types of landslides, creep, and Quaternary ...slope deposits of carbonate blocks and recent scree deposits. A general geological setting is represented as Mesozoic carbonate overthrust on Paleogene flysch (alternations of mostly sandstones and marlstones), resulting in steep slopes and mass movements. Our study is based on the automatic classification of various litho-geomorphological units including slope deposits, alluvial deposits, steep carbonate cliffs, flysch, two carbonate plateaus, and Quaternary deposits, based on supervised Maximum Likelihood Classification. Several polygons were used for training in the broader valley area, and later, the method was applied to automatically classify the complete area into the abovementioned six units. For input layers, we used data for elevation, slope, terrain ruggedness index (TRI), and curvature. Results show that generally, the method is suitable for classification of the litho-geomorphological units including slope deposits. However, comparison with a more detailed map, comprising mapped various mass movements indicated that the method correctly predicts high Trnovo plateau carbonates, steep carbonate slopes, translational carbonate blocks, and fossil rock avalanche deposits, and alluvial deposits, but is not able to clearly distinguish between flysch and more recent slope deposits of gravel and breccia due to their similar elevation, TRI, and slope values. The Slano blato mudflow and Stogovce landslide are not recognized. Therefore, this automatic classification can be carefully used to create a guidance map of general occurrences of litho-geomorphological units including slope deposits before going to the field, with the aim of delineation of slope deposits so they can be further studied in detail later in the field. However, such a map cannot be used as a direct substitute map for the geological and geomorphological map obtained in the field due to impossibility in distinguishing among the units with the same properties (elevation, slope, and TRI values).
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