Water, both surface and underground, penetrate into the cracks and dissolve these materials, creating galleries and caves that can sink partially to form sinkholes, or entirely to form canyons. The word karst comes from the Slovenian region of Kras or Carso, which also extends to areas of Croatia and northeastern Italy, whose calcareous plateaus are riddled with these geological formations.
In Spain, karst modeling is also abundant, since a large part of the peninsular soil is made up of limestone rocks. The Drach caves, in Mallorca, are an example of this type of caves, where the characteristic stalactites appear, formed from the water that drips from the ceiling, and the stalagmites, raised by the water deposited on the ground. The Andalusian mountain ranges of the subbetic system or the Enchanted City of Cuenca, originated 90 million years ago, are also karst areas. There, only the hardest rocks resist, which the wind and rain have been sculpting to produce a relief with curiously shaped structures.
