ABSTRACT
Hundreds of caves have been mapped in Guizhou. Many contain relict passages and chambers with massive stalagmites, and dated material shows a long spread of ages in the Middle and Late Pleistocene, with peaks of deposition at 80-115 ka and 31-49 ka (Zhang & Barbary, 1988). The show cave of Daji Dong, near Zhijin, is notable for its giant stalagmites and columns, and the nearby Santang Dong is 7.2 km long. South of Anshun, Gebihe Dong has 11.9 km of very large river passage (broken by an undived sump). The sink entrance is an arch 116 m high, there is a skylight shaft 370 m deep above the river passage, and a chamber near the rising is one of the world’s largest, 700 m long and 200 m wide (Collignon, 1992). In the southwestern county of Anlong, Ban Dong is 17.8 km long and contains a chamber 300 m by 150 m and a shaft of 225 m as one of its entrances. Near Shuicheng, Saguo Dong has a streamway with a succession of 17 shafts dropping into a segment of the underground Fala River, and the nearby Wujia Dong is 430 m deep. In northern Guizhou, the karst around Houping has over 23 km of mapped caves.
