There is ongoing preparation of two interlinked activities relevant to hypogene karst: the DeepKarst 2016 Conference and the book “Selected Hypogene Karst Regions and Caves of the World.”

1. DeepKarst-2016 Conference: Origins, Resources, and Management of Hypogene Karst. As you might know from the earlier announcements (e.g. http://speleogenesis.info/news/?id=336), this conference will be held at NCKRI Headquarters in Carlsbad, New Mexico, USA on 11-14 April 2016. It is being organized by National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI) in cooperation with the UIS Commission on Karst Hydrogeology and Speleogenesis (UIS KHS Commission). The focus of the conference will be on hypogenic karst, its theory, management, economic reservoirs, and more. It will be one of the major karst-related events in 2016 and the major meeting of the UIS KHS Commission, the last one before the UIS Congress in Australia in 2017. Colleagues involved in hypogene karst researches are encouraged to consider submitting a paper to this important conference and attend it.

Not much time remains before the papers for this conference are due (on 15 September 2015). For registration, submission and further details please go to the conference website at http://deepkarst.org/ . Please, support the conference by your contribution and encourage your colleagues to attend!

2. The book “Selected Hypogene Karst Regions and Caves of the Word”. During the recent karst conference at Birmingham, UK (June 2015), preliminary arrangements were made with representatives of the Springer publishing company to prepare a book titled “Selected Hypogene Karst Regions and Caves of the Word” for Springer’s “Cave and Karst Systems of the World” Book Series. This book will be edited by Philippe Audra, Arthur Palmer, Jo De Waele, Augusto Auler and Alexander Klimchouk, and will contain regional and cave-specific case studies, selected to represent diversity of speleogenetic processes and void-conduit patterns in different geological (hydrogeologic, geodynamic, etc.) environments. Detailed studies of typologically representative hypogene karst regions and cave systems are indispensable for improving our understanding of complex and still insufficiently understood relationships between cave-forming processes and geological environments. Publication of such book will enhance our ability to categorize hypogene karst, develop adequate conceptual and numerical models of hypogene karstification, and eventually predict hypogene karst porosity and permeability.

The preparation of this book is connected to the NCKRI’s DeepKarst 2016 conference. Selected contributions submitted to the conference as short papers will be invited to be presented in an extended format as chapters in this book. We’ll also additionally invite papers to achieve desired typological and geographic representation of hypogene karst of the world, based on responses to this call and the editor’s awareness of past and ongoing hypogene karst researches. For this book, we solicit case-studies on both, well-known and newly recognized hypogene karst regions and caves of the world and ask authors to focus on geological, hydrogeological, geodynamic and evolutionary contexts of hypogene speleogenesis.

Both geographic distribution of hypogene karst and our knowledge of its regularities and peculiar features are still highly irregular. Whenever possible, we encourage potential authors working in regions that share a common geologic and hydrogeologic settings and/or history to consider suggesting joint contributions covering hypogene karst of their regions. Alternatively, we’ll also welcome contributions that provide overviews of hypogenic karst over large diverse regions and show regularities of its distribution and diversity of its patterns depending on variations of geologic/hydrogeologic settings and tectonic/geomorphological evolution. Case studies on outstanding and typologically representative individual caves or groups of caves are also appropriate for this book.

Here we announce the call for your suggestions for chapter titles for the book. Please, send them to me (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) before October 30, 2015, along with abstracts or explanations of your vision of the scope of your contribution(s). Indicate whether you are submitting this contribution to DeepKarst-2016 conference (the latter is recommended but not required). We’ll notify you about the editors’ decision on inclusion of your suggested contributions to the book before November 30, and we anticipate the deadline for submission of manuscripts at April 30, 2016. Publication of the book is tentatively planned for the fall of 2016.

I hope very much for your collaboration on these projects.

Best regards,

Sincerely,

Alexander Klimchouk
President of the UIS KHS Commission