Weathering, geomorphic work, and karst landscape evolution in the Cave City groundwater basin, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

Intense, short-duration events dominate. Storms that filled the Logsdon River conduit occurred <5% of the year but were responsible for 38% of the dissolved load leaving the system and from 63% to 100% of conduit growth for various scenarios of sediment influence. Landscape denudation is a linear function of the amount of water moving through the system, but conduit growth rates, and thus rates of recharge area evolution from fluvial to karst surface landscapes, depend both on the amount of water available and the distribution of precipitation.