Discussion of a solution landscape formed a tropical climate of moderately high rainfall.

A growing community of scientists, land-management decision makers, and cavers are concerned about the protection of natural resources and want to share research among themselves. But few of them are fluent in each discipline's jargon, and cavers and geologists in particular who want to share their discoveries find it difficult to understand each other. Sandra Poucher and Rick Copeland have created this comprehensive karst glossary to correct discrepancies in communications among geologists and biologists, hydrologists and divers, cavers and speleologists, thereby enabling researchers to speak a common language. Cavers and cave divers are passionate about mastering the language to communicate their finds and understand the research of others. Speleologists (cave scientists) are eager to understand and apply cavers' discoveries to their work in the geology, biology, water flow, and other scientific aspects of caves. This multidisciplinary volume, featuring extensive reference materials, is the only one to focus on Floridian and Caribbean karst features. The highly focused result of a dynamic team of scientists, cavers, and cave divers who have sorted through the myriad of terms and definitions, this glossary is essential to geologists, hydrologists, biologists, hydrogeologists, and private businesses dealing with the study of groundwater, karst and/or treatment of sinkholes, land-management decision makers, and speleologists.

This book provides a practical strategy for obtaining a more complete and accurate geologic site characterization. The strategy and methods to characterize complex geologic settings are readily available. The strategy utilizes readily available technology, basic science and good, old-fashioned common sense resulting in a solid understanding of geologic and even karst or pseudokarst conditions. We provide an introduction to many off-the-shelf methods available for site characterization as well as examples of their application throughout the book. The purpose of a geologic site characterization is to understand the 3-dimensional geologic framework, along with the engineering and hydrologic properties of a site including any man-made impacts. A well-done site characterization is the cornerstone of all geotechnical, groundwater and environmental projects. The geologic conditions, particularly karst conditions, can significantly impact a site including its structural stability, groundwater pathways and potential for rapid transport or traps for contaminants. Once we have adequately characterized the geologic conditions can we carry our remediation, design and construction, model flow, and make risk assessments that are accurate and reliable.