The endokarstic erosion of marble in cold climates : Corbel revisited
After the work of Jean Corbel in the 1950s, who compared karstification in the Scandinavian Caledonide marbles with that in sedimentary limestones in temperate and tropical regions, the understanding of underground limestone dissolution has
developed considerably. Corbel concluded that ‘karstification proceeds much faster in a cold than in a warm climate’, based on the knowledge that the solubilities of both CO2 and CaCO3 increase with lower temperature, without realizing that because cave
streams in Scandinavia rarely reach saturation this fact is not directly relevant. The exploration of large numbers of (short) caves in central Scandinavia shows that Corbel’s conclusion is partly true for the more recent geological past, because