The limestone outcrops are a small part of a much more extensive area of karst, the eastern part of which it is intended to visit during the summer of 1991. A relic of the closure of the Tethys ocean, and some way north of the presumed area of the Arabian/European plate suture, the Jurassic-Cretaceous sediments, now lithified, have been faulted and upthrust, and later covered with much more recent sediments.
Unlike much of UK karst areas, Turkey has not suffered the glacial inundations which so modify the products of cave-passage development, and, reliant upon weathering by frost action and chemical means alone, results in topography which mirrors the rocks' competence to resist these modifiers.
As a consequence, therefore, good correlation is observed between the inhabited lowlands, underlain by soft silt- and mudstones, and the upland areas where it has proved inconvenient or impossible to sustain agriculture on the limestone, which is therefore left thickly forested, with some coppicing on the lower slopes.
The northerly outcrop of limestone, including areas 4 - 7 as set down in the expedition account, is heavily faulted and folded, as can be inferred from the dip/strike symbols on the map.
South of this, surrounding areas 1 and 2, is the plateau of Akkaya (which extends much further to the south than indicated), fault bounded to the north, resulting in a steep scarp, and incised by the River Irmak, where an impressive gorge is lodged.
Observations of the bedding from the villages of Acina and Derebucagi indicated that little major folding, at least in a N-S axis, is found on this plateau, where dip/strike information is obviously scarce.
Area 1, comprising the caves of Ilgarini, Skull and Snail, showed indications of a fold axis at, and parallel to, the entrance passage of Ilgarini, and later, close to the top of the ramp section in the same cave. All demonstrating an E-W trend, and suggesting that the development of the upper series was dependant upon erosion and drop out on the inside of an antiform structure.
Area 2, investigated by a scramble up the gorge from Acina, did result in the discovery of a number of small resurgences (see account), taking the form of cracks, parallel to the bedding, demonstrating the integrity of the limestone to erosion where no system of joints exists apart from those produced by bedding.
Area 3, a large granitic intrusion, represents a large topographic high, and was indicated by the locals as possessing a number of small (joint controlled ?) caves.