A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS ON DEVELOPMENT CHARACTERISTICS OF CAVES IN SHILIN, YUNNAN PROVINCE

Shilin County is located at southern part of Yunnan east Karst highland, where karst develops very well She is worldwide known for the typical shilin landforms, called stone forest too well developed, which has drawn much attention of the karstologists around world Karst caves develop very well too in Shilin area The distribution of karst caves are controlled by the spatial distribution of carbonate rocks in the area, which is showed by the selective chrematistic to the strata and lithology, the comparative concentricity of karst cave development and the layered features of the caves Small and medium scale caves are dominant absolutely, most caves are modern ground river caves, which buried shallow and rich in sky-windows and the orientations of caves obvious controlled by structure fissures Based on the analysis on the cave forming conditions, the features of caves distribution and cave space structure scales, and the paleoenvironment, the cave development characteristics in Shilin are discussed