Resumen

BARREDO, Silvia; GABRIELE, Norberto; GARRIDO, Alberto  y  REDONTE, Gabriel. Los principales sistemas de cavernas cársticas de la provincia del Neuquén. Rev. Asoc. Geol. Argent. [online]. 2012, vol.69, n.4, pp.556-569. ISSN 0004-4822.

The Neuquén province exhibits one of the most valuable karst landscapes of Argentina as it records the biggest limestone cavern, the Cuchillo Curá System. The great development of it made speleologists extensively explore the province, and up to now 111 caves have been topographied. They comprise dissolutional caves in limestones and gypsum lithologies as well as volcanic caves which as a whole constitute excellent examples of karts and pseudokarst processes. The origin of these caves occurred during the Pleistocene-Holocene times as a consequence of the reogenic corrosion of the hosting rocks under alternating humid, cold to template climate. Yet, the present-day semiarid conditions have driven most of them to an inactive hydraulic stage, although with minimum karst processes still in progress.

Palabras clave : Karst; Caves; Limestone; Gypsum; Speleogenesis.

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