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Largest group of dolines discovered
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A SINO-FOREIGN expedition announced on April 16 that dolines found in Leye County of South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region are the largest group of their kind in the world.
Dolines are special geological landscape found in karst regions, formed by repeated cave-ins of the tops of the underground caves. They are mainly seen in China, Mexico and Papua New Guinea.
The expedition, which is now in this southern Chinese county for the fifth round of exploration, have so far found 20 big dolines of different types in Leye, 460 kilometres away from Nanning, Guangxi's capital.
Cai Wutian, an associate research fellow with the Institute of Karst and Geology at the Chinese Academy of Geology and a member on the fifth exploration team, explained that the high concentration of dolines, formed three to four million years ago (the Quaternary Period of the Cenozoic Era), in Leye lies in the fact that dolines encountered a drastic raising of the earth's crust or mountain-making movement of the Himalayas in their formation, which has led to the shaping of Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in Southwest China, and Leye is situated at the transitional zone from the plateau to the lower land to the east.
Aided with know-how and modern means including GPS, this group of explorers have found Dashiwei Doline, the world' second biggest doline with 613 metres in depth and a cubage of 80 million cubic metres. The world's biggest doline, Xiaozhai Doline, with a depth of 660 metres and cubage of 119 million cubic metres, is located in the Chongqing Municipality on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
A large area of primitive forest has been found at the bottom of Dashiwei Doline, which is inhabited by more than 1,000 varieties of plants, including many rare and precious species, and some smaller creatures, such as blind fish, crabs, shrimp, and flying squirrels.
In the meantime, the explorers have also found a huge underground palace in another doline near Dashiwei Doline. The underground palace is said to be 300 metres long, 200 metres wide and 200 metres high. It is 20 metres below the ground. Right above the underground palace is a Project Hope Primary School at a local village in Leye County.
Rob Garrett from Britain, who has participated in the exploration of dolines and caves in other European countries and Mexico, claims that dolines found in Leye are the most beautiful he has visited, while eulogizing the warm climate in the region.
Garrett has been making the fifth round of expeditions together with Erin Lynch of the United States, James Alker of Britain, as well as Chinese research workers from the Institute of Karst and Geology of the Chinese Academy of Geology based in Guangxi.
According to Zhu Xuewen, the initiator of the exploration, more than 20 explorers and cave experts from China, Britain, Ireland, Australia, Italy and the United States have participated in exploration operations into the dolines in Leye since 1999.
Zhu, also a research fellow with Institute of Karst and Geology of the Chinese Academy of Geology and a well-known karst cave expert, added that the joint outdoor explorations by Chinese and foreign explorers and experts helped solve the many riddles around the dolines found in Leye County and explore tourism resources in this southern Chinese county, which falls under jurisdiction of Bose Prefecture, a well-known revolutionary base in China.
Zhu hoped that effective measures be worked out to protect dolines from destruction in the wake of increased human activities.
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