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May 28, 2025

Underground water channels preserve ancient climate records in their shape

Solution pipes from different locations: (A) Smerdyna, Poland (photo by P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw); (B) Guilderton, Australia (photo by P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw); and (C) Swanscombe, England (photo by J. Rhodes, courtesy of the British Geological Survey). Credit: (A) P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw; (B) P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw; and (C) J. Rhodes, the British Geological Survey.
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Solution pipes from different locations: (A) Smerdyna, Poland (photo by P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw); (B) Guilderton, Australia (photo by P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw); and (C) Swanscombe, England (photo by J. Rhodes, courtesy of the British Geological Survey). Credit: (A) P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw; (B) P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw; and (C) J. Rhodes, the British Geological Survey.

Water reshapes Earth through slow, powerful erosion, carving intricate landscapes like caves and pinnacles in soluble rocks such as limestone. An international team from the Faculty of Âé¶¹ÒùÔºics at the University of Warsaw, the University of Florida, and the Institute of Earth Sciences in Orléans has discovered that vertical channels, known as karstic solution pipes, preserve a record of Earth's climatic history.

Their study, in Âé¶¹ÒùÔºical Review Letters, reveals that these pipes evolve with time into an invariant shape, a fixed, ideal form that remains unchanged as the pipes deepen, encoding ancient rainfall patterns.

Using microfluidic experiments, the team mimicked this process in miniature, etching water into channels within gypsum-lined cells. "We observed something striking," says StanisÅ‚aw Å»ukowski, pursuing Ph.D. at the Faculty of Âé¶¹ÒùÔºics of the University of Warsaw and Université Paris Cité, the first author of the paper.

"From a chaotic start, only a few channels survived, each settling into a stable, invariant shape that grew deeper without changing form. This mirrors the behavior of karstic pipes in nature."

Left: Solution pipes in limestone bedrock in Smerdyna quarry, Poland. Right: dissolution channels formed in a microfluidic experiment. Credit: Left photo by P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw; Right photo by University of Warsaw.
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Left: Solution pipes in limestone bedrock in Smerdyna quarry, Poland. Right: dissolution channels formed in a microfluidic experiment. Credit: Left photo by P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw; Right photo by University of Warsaw.

Deriving the for this shape was complex. "Capturing the invariant form required sophisticated mathematical tools, blending and reactive transport to model how groundwater, driven by rainfall, shapes these pipes," says Prof. Piotr Szymczak from the Faculty of Âé¶¹ÒùÔºics, University of Warsaw, the corresponding author.

"The formula reveals how accelerates groundwater movement, forming elongated pipes that record in their shape past rainfall conditions."

Deciphering nature's plan

By studying these shapes, scientists can reconstruct Earth's climatic past. Understanding these patterns is also crucial for predicting how water moves through underground reservoirs, which has implications for everything from groundwater management to COâ‚‚ storage and even oil recovery.

This study is part of a broader effort to understand how simple physical laws give rise to complex natural structures. Just as and follow mathematical rules, so too do the silent, hidden processes of rock dissolution. The discovery of an invariant shape for dissolution fingers is a step toward deciphering nature's secret blueprint, one drop of water at a time.

More information: StanisÅ‚aw Å»ukowski et al, Invariant Forms of Dissolution Fingers, Âé¶¹ÒùÔºical Review Letters (2025).

Journal information: Âé¶¹ÒùÔºical Review Letters

Provided by University of Warsaw

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Karstic solution pipes, vertical channels in soluble rock, develop an invariant shape that encodes ancient rainfall patterns as they deepen. Microfluidic experiments and mathematical modeling show that these stable forms result from groundwater flow driven by precipitation, allowing reconstruction of past climates and informing groundwater and resource management.

This summary was automatically generated using LLM.