English to Spanish Art/Literary Geology travel guide

Dolines, tumuli and caverns

Where surface drainage first came into contact with the gypsum, it began to dissolve the gypsum to form hollows called dolines (dolinas in Spanish). Over time these were gradually enlarged and water began to penetrate deeper into the gypsum mass, finding both vertical and horizontal weaknesses that were slowly enlarged by solution. Over many thousands of years a complex network of underground passages, galleries and caverns developed, of a type that will be familiar to anyone who has visited any of the British limestone caves open to the public such as Peak Cavern in Derbyshire.

As well as the FEATURES OF SOLUTION, more delicate structures are also part of the subterranean landscape. As water moves slowly through the gypsum, it not only dissolves it but also becomes saturated with it. The result is that, where water drips constantly, small crystals of gypsum are precipitated, gradually building to form stalactites, stalagmites, columns and curtains of great delicacy. One way to remember the difference between stalactites and stalagmites is to consider the middle letters; stalactites grow down from the ceiling, stalagmites grow up from the ground; or ‘tites (sic) come down and mites grow up’.