Evaporite karst in Sicily

Karst areas are distributed over most of Sicily. The most widespread karst rocks are carbonates, particularly limestones, but karst phenomena can also be seen in evaporites and particularly in salt mines. This report provides an overview of evaporite karst in Sicily, along with a “case history” that shows some of the evaporite karst risks to the environment. In the centre and south of Sicily, a thick sequence of Messinian evaporite rocks are subject to dissolution from meteoric and formation waters. In areas where potassium salts and rock salts are being mined, some geomorphologic changes result from the drilling of boreholes and the collapse of underground mines, thus lowering or collapsin…