The lapiaz of Peña Cabarga (Cantabria). Genesis and signifiance of an original form

Abstract

Gaudy cone and pinnacle karsts have been exhumed in many points of Northern Spain by open pit mining activities. Usually considered, without a real basis, as a "tropical climate" inheritance, these forms must be explained as result of iron and lead sulphides alteration in an environment with a conjunction of favourable conditions to karst processes in present-day.