Karst Paleo-Research Group

Best of Karst

Over the past years, the Karst Research Group at USF has successfully organized the so-called BEST OF KARST. This event consists of a lecture (or series of lectures) presented by highly esteemed karst scientists from the US or overseas and 2 days of field trips highlighting the karst and caves of Central Florida.

Our previous BOK speakers:

2022 (ZOOM EDITION):

  • Ana Z茅lia Miller: Geomicrobiology of volcanic caves: implications for astrobiology and paleoenvironmental research.
  • Philippe Audra:  Hypogene speleogenesis.
  • Bruce Railsback: Inside stalagmites: petrologic features of stalagmites
    and their application to the study of past climate.
  • Yemane Asmerom: Constraining the X-axis: developments in the chronology of cave deposits.

2021 (ZOOM EDITION):

  • Jo De Waele: Caves = Underground rivers. Is it always true?
  • Daniel O. Breecker:  Controls on the stable carbon isotopic composition of stalagmites.
  • Aurel Persoiu: The world of underground glaciers.
  • Hazel Barton: The surprising microbiology of cave environments.
  • Daniel S. Jones: Sulfuric acid caves and the microbes that make them: Geomicrobiology of the Frasassi cave system.

2020 

  • COVID Time

2019    

  • Victor POLYAK: Pueblo construction in the American Southwest was coeval with drier climate: Late Holocene stalagmite HC-1.

2018    

  • Lewis LAND: Evaluation of groundwater residence time in a high mountain aquifer system (Sacramento Mountains, USA): Insights gained from use of multiple environmental tracers.

2017    

  • Harvey DuCHENE: Tectonic influences on petroleum migration and speleogenesis in the Guadalupe Mountains, New Mexico & Texas.

2016    

  • Jay L. BANNER: Past, present, and future climate change impacts on water in a semi-arid region: science and policy.

2014  

  • E. Calvin ALEXANDER, Jr.: The Soudan Iron Mine: A Martian karst analog.

2013  

  • Penelope BOSTON: Caves as Integrated Systems: Life and Times in the Near Subsurface Critical Zone.

2012  

  • Louise HOSE: What we can learn about speleogenesis from modern dynamic, sulfide-rich, hypogenic caves: Did 鈥渟notittes鈥 play a role in forming Carlsbad Cavern, Lechuguilla, and other giant cavern of the world?

2011  

  • Hazel BARTON: Rock Eating Microbes: The Reality of Biospeleogenesis.

2010    

  • Ronald KERBO: A Retrospective of the U.S. National Park Service's Cave and Karst Program.

2009  

  •  John MYLROIE: Syndepositional karst: Making limestone and caves at the same time.

2009  

  •  Joan MYLROIE: Cave Cartography: A Tool for Understanding Carbonate Islands.

2008    

  • Derek FORD: Trees of Stone:  Detecting Climates and Climate Change in Stalagmites in Caves & How to enlarge a National Park: A Case Study of South Nahanni River National Park, Reserve, Northwest Territories, Canada.

2008    

  • Henry SCHWARCZ: Stone Water Bottles: Using Fluid Inclusions to Reconstruct Past Climate & Using Stable Isotopes to Solve Murder Mysteries.

2007    

  • Arthur N. PALMER: Origin and Patterns of Solution Caves and Porosity.

2007    

  • Alexander KLIMCHOUK: The Diversity of Karst Types: From Deep- Seated Karst to Deepest Caves" and reception.