Karren of Mushroom Mountain (Junzi Shan) in the Eastern Yunnan Ridge, Yunnan, China: Karstological and Tourist Attraction

<正>Mushroom Mountain karren with predominantly flat tops that formed along the stylolites and bedding planes dictated the special features of this karst landscape.Their features and rock relief clearly reflect the geological conditions and development.The subsoil karren with conical tops dissected by subsoil rock relief were exposed from beneath the soil.Below tree vegetation,the subsoil karren are to a great extent covered by moss and lichen,under which they acquire their characteristic shape.On the bare surface they were reshaped by rainwater that carves flutes and solution pans.The old cave that opens below the top of one of the cones reveals the period before its dissection into hills and cones when this part of the karst aquifer was still deep under the water table.     

Shilin： The Formation of Stone Forests in Various Rock Types （Lunan, Yunnan, China）

Shilin is among the most interesting form of stone forest to occur in karst landscapes. They develop from karren subsoil, and their shapes, entire forests or just individual pillars and their rock relief, depend on the conditions under which they were formed, their location in the karst landscape, and above all on the characteristics of the rock： its composition, stratification, and fissuring. Because of the exceptional characteristics of this karst phenomenon in China, we propose that the term ＂shilin＂ be used in the professional literature for this type of stone forest.     

Baiyun Cave in Naigu Shilin,Yunnan Karst,China

The Baiyun cave is a 380 m long karst cave in the Naigu Shilin, situated 70 km southeast of Kunming, Yunnan Province, China. The prevailing orientations of the cave passages are N110°-120°E and N0°-10°W and those of the fissures in the cave are N30°-40°W and N20°-30°W. The cave is developed in the thick-bedded Lower Permian Qixia Formation. The cave has an active water flow and is currently at the near water-table stage. There are large amounts of different infills of cave sediments. The cave shows different stages of paragenesis. The palaeomagnetic analysis of cave sediments shows that their ages are younger than 780 ka B.P. (the Brunhes Chron). The upper part of the sampled profile belongs to the reverse Blake event (112.3-117.9 ka B.P.). The formation of the Baiyun cave is directly connected with the development of the Naigu Shilin. The formation of karst underground and surface features depends on the regional tectonic deformation and the Cenozoic extension of the study area.     

Speleogenesis of Selected Caves beneath the Lunan Shilin and Caves of Fenglin Karst in Qiubei, Yunnan

Yunnan is famous for its attractive karst landscapes especially shilins, fengcong and fenglin. The development of caves beneath the shilins in the vicinity of Lunan is closely connected with the formation of shilins. Most of the waters percolating through shilins run through the caves beneath them and are responsible for their formation. The study of cave speleogenesis deepens knowledge about both the development of shilins and karst structure. In the vicinity of the Lunan Shilin, speleological, morphological and structural geological studies of four karst caves have been accomplished. At Puzhehei, Qiubei, which is characterised by numerous fenglin, fengcong and caves, speleological and morphological studies have been performed. Cave sediments for paleomagnetic analyses have been taken from all studied areas (samples CH 1-9). Karst caves in SE Yunnan are probably much older than the age of the cave sediments (<780,000 years B.P.). The studied areas are located in the vicinity of the Xiaojiang fault (N-S