Lithological and structural controls of dissolutional cave development. Huntsville, AL, United States. Lithologic and structural conditions for speleogenesis evolve throughout sedimentation, eogenesis, mesogenesis, and telogenesis, and change drastically between these stages. Inheritance in the evolution of different kinds of prespeleogenetic porosity causes increasing heterogeneity in their distribution and parameters, which reaches the highest degree after burial at the stage of rock emergence to the shallow subsurface and the surface.
Fissures evolve at different stages of the rock evolution.
Networks are composed of complex planar and curvilinear surfaces interconnecting in three dimensions, constructed from fissures of various origins, generations, and ages. The initial structural conditions for speleogenesis thus can be highly varied depending at which particular stage speleogenesis commences. Conditions in deep-seated settings favor uniform speleogenetic development, whereas in shallow settings increased heterogeneity in fissure parameters can favor selective development. Modeling of conduit initiation and early development needs to take into account a great variability of initial permeability structures between common geologic environments and evolutionary stages, especially rather dynamic nondissolutional changes of these structures in shallow settings.