GEOLOGY

If this legend has not satisfied your curiosity about the creation of the Karst, then books on geology might reveal an even more surprising truth to you: the Karst was created by seawater.

Geologists have indisputably proved that the karst plateau was created in late Cretaceous period (115 - 50 million years BC). In that period, the karst landscape was covered by a shallow sea. Its seabed provided a habitat for millions of plant and animal micro-organisms. The most common animals were molluscs and rudists, a group of tube or ring shaped marine heterodyne bivalves. Over millions of years, shells of dead molluscs and rudists were accumulating on the seabed. After lengthy chemical processes, deposits of shell fragments were transformed into limestone rock strata.

Due to the pressure exerted by the movement of the African tectonic plate on the Eurasian plate, the horizontal limestone rock strata covering the seabed broke and buckled as it was being pushed up from the sea floor.

In this process, the karst plateau started to gradually rise from the sea, but the numerous finds of fossilised shells and molluscs in the limestone rock testify to its marine origin.