The NSS Bulletin - ISSN 1090-6924
Volume 39 Number 4: 110-113 - October 1977
A publication of the National Speleological Society

Sweden: Caves in Crystalline, Insoluble, Igneous Rocks
Leander Tell

Abstract

Sweden is underlain almost entirely by Archean granites, gneisses, and porphyries. Calcareous rocks very rarely crop out at the surface, being limited to the Danian formation in Scania, the Silurian formation in Gotland, and some pre-Cambrian limestones in Dalecarlia and in Lapland.

Many years ago, the author proposed the following classificaiton of cave-like features in non-carbonate terranes: 1. "orginal caves" along widened joints and other fractures; 2. caves formed by frost wedging, cavernous weathering, and abrasion, and 3. "glacial caves," i.e. potholes, talus caves, and cave among heaps of glacial eratics. That Swedes have dealt mainly with these kinds of caves has caused them to develop a special branch of speleology.

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