Baiyun cave in Naigu Shilin, Yunnan karst, China

The Baiyun cave is a 380 m long karst cave in the Naigu Shilin, situated 70 km southeast of Kunming, Yunnan Province, China. The prevailing orientatio ns of the cave passages are N110 degrees -120 degreesE and NO degrees -IO d egreesW and those of the fissures in the cave are N30 degrees -40 degreesW and N20 degrees -30 degreesW. The cave is developed in the thick-bedded Low er Permian Qixia Formation. The cave has an active water flow and is curren tly at the near water-table stage. There are large amounts of different inf ills of cave sediments. The cave shows different stages of paragenesis. The palaeomagnetic analysis of cave sediments shows that their ages are younge r than 780 ka B.P. (the Brunhes Chron). The upper part of the sampled profi le belongs to the reverse Blake event (112.3-117.9 ka B.P.). The formation of the Baiyun cave is directly connected with the development of the Naigu Shilin. The formation of karst underground and surface features depends on the regional tectonic deformation and the Cenozoic extension of the study a rea.