| Covering some 350 square kilometers,the Stone Forest Geopark is located in Yi Nationality Autonomous County of Yunnan Province,80 kilometers southwest of Kunming municipality,the provincial capital of Yunnan.The geopark is well known in the world as the typical stone forest landform.In 2004 it was listed as a World Geopark by UNESCO.Since late Permian epoch,the Stone Forest has experienced four stages of development under favorable geological,climatic,and hydrological condition.The major types of development are subsoil erosion and dissolution by rainwater.The Major Stone Forest is located in the center of the geopark's sight-seeing areas,which is a conventional site that people can enjoy representative pinnacle karst.The main body of the Maior Stone Forest is combination of pinnacle karst and structural featural of associated depression.The depression looks like a funnel,and the diameter is about 600 meters.The area of the Major Stone Forest is 446636 m~2,the surface area is 714021 m~2,and the perimeter of the Ring Road is 2884 meteres.The stone forest accounts for 55.5%of the world areas,the burst 21%,bunch grass 15.5%,lawn 5.8%,lakes 1.4%,and buildings 0.8%.The main works of this paper are as follows:Firstly,general situations of the Stone Forest Geopark are studied.Secondly,areal geological setting and developing conditions of the stone forest karst are studied.Besides a model of stone forest development is introduced.Thirdly,rock dissolution and morphological characteristics of the stone forest karst are studied.Fourthly,the statistics of collapsed stone columns of the Major Stone Forest are carried on.There are 359 collapsed stone columns in the Major Stone Forest. Fifthly,collapsed stone columns of the Major Stone Forest are studied. |
