Coastal caves on the Interview Island of Andaman Islands, India
- PDF / 1,111,517 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 3 Downloads / 192 Views
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Coastal caves on the Interview Island of Andaman Islands, India Dhanusha Kawalkar1 · Shirish Manchi1 Accepted: 28 September 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract By the presence of well-developed terraces on the Interview Island of Middle Andaman, we conducted an exploratory study on the Interview Island of Andaman and Nicobar Islands to understand the development of coastal caves here. During the investigation, we identified seven coastal caves on the island. Morphometric data of these study caves were used for further quantitative analysis by following the area/perimeter (A/P) and entrance width/maximum width (E/M) ratios to classify the cave types. We recognized from the results that the coastal caves could not be easily differentiated as flank margin caves based on A/P and E/M ratios. Nevertheless, based on their morphometry, we could confirm the occurrence of sea caves on the East and West coast of the Interview Island. The present study, as part of the more extensive ongoing research to conserve a cave-dwelling bird, allowed us to report and discuss the occurrence of the coastal caves, and their importance to understanding the speleological significance of the Interview Island. Keywords Cave morphometry · Flank margin caves · Freshwater lens · Littoral caves · Simple carbonate island · Sea caves
Introduction Seacoasts are the major geomorphic systems with abundant landforms (Lace and Mylroie 2013). They occur in different types, shapes, origins, and functions, and are the eco-tones formed at the intercept of marine and terrestrial environments (Moore 1954). Amongst the diverse array of coastlines, the rocky ones usually take part in the evolution of the coastal caves (Lace and Mylroie 2013; Wilkens et al. 2009). The classification of the coastal caves as karst and pseudokarst is by the evolutionary process and rock composition on the sea coast (Moore 1954; Mylroie and Mylroie 2013a). Karst consists of the landforms developed by the water flow system on and within the soluble rock material. Pseudokarsts are karst-like features evolved by the processes other than rock dissolution, such as lava tubes, tafoni, talus, fissures, sea caves, and arches (Palmer 2007). Karst terranes provide freshwater resources, and are fragile underground landscapes of biological and archaeological significance. The caves provide archives of natural processes that control * Shirish Manchi [email protected] 1
Division of Conservation Ecology, Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), Anaikatty P.O., Coimbatore 641108, India
evolution of karst phenomenon (Mylroie and Carew 1995b; Ekmekci 2005; Audra et al. 2007; Mylroie and Mylroie 2007; Klimchouk 2013). Geomorphologists termed the karstic caves as flank margin caves (FMC) when the dissolution of rock material forms them by the seawater and freshwater (Lace and Mylroie 2013; Mylroie and Mylroie 2007). FMCs develop at the coasts of the carbonate islands in the distal margin of the freshwater lens bu
Data Loading...
