Procesos de karstificacion actual en el area del Cerro de la Oliva (Patones, Madrid)

Abstract

The Cerro de la Oliva karst is one of the best examples in this type of morphodynamic systems located in the Sistema Central Mountains. The study of the processes of current karstification evidences new data on the beginning of the karst in this area and the mechanisms of its recent reactivation, providing with data on the genesis and development of singular endokarstic processes both in the northwest and southeast sides of the Sistema Central. We have observed that karstification affects specifically to dolomitic materials taking place by means of dedolomitization processes favoured by the dissolution of overlaying gypsiferous materials. This mechanism, at the moment active, is very similar to the one that gave origin to the karstic systems developed to both sides of the Sistema Central, implying that the first stages of cretacic limestones karstification of Cerro de la Oliva took place at the end of early Pleistocene, being these materials still covered for palaeogene gypsum and clays.