{"id":9803,"date":"2025-09-17T16:22:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T14:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/?p=9803"},"modified":"2026-09-02T16:33:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T14:33:35","slug":"reading-earths-climate-history-the-mysteries-of-solution-pipes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/reading-earths-climate-history-the-mysteries-of-solution-pipes\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Earth’s climate history: The mysteries of solution pipes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How has Earth\u2019s climate changed over the past hundreds of thousands of years? It\u2019s a question that matters more than ever \u2013 not only for understanding the planet\u2019s natural climate cycles, but also for predicting the effects of global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their search for \u201cclimate archives,\u201d scientists turn to a variety of sources \u2013\u00a0from ice cores and seafloor sediments to cave formations. Now, an international team of researchers from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, the University of Florida, and the Institute of Earth Sciences in Orl\u00e9ans has identified another intriguing archive: solution pipes \u2013\u00a0vertical channels carved into limestone. They published their findings in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A drop hollows out the stone<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Water reshapes the Earth\u2019s surface slowly but relentlessly, carving out gorges, caves, and karst sinkholes. It also leaves subtler traces: vertical channels known as solution pipes, etched into limestone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes them so intriguing? Their shape barely changes as they grow. The channel simply stretches longer and longer, preserving the same distinctive form it had from the start. And that remarkable consistency could turn these formations into time capsules of the conditions under which they formed \u2013 especially the amount of precipitation at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To investigate this process, the researchers conducted microfluidic experiments using gypsum. They made small cuts in the sample and then allowed water to flow through them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough the dissolution process was chaotic at first, eventually only a few channels kept growing. Each developed a stable, distinctive shape and then continued to grow without changing it. If we trace the channel boundaries at successive stages and overlay them so that their tips coincide, the outlines fall on top of one another – the shape has remained unchanged from the very beginning. Solution pipes in nature behave in exactly the same way,\u201d the researchers explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is as though an ideal form were sinking slowly into the rock as if into wax, keeping its shape all the way down and leaving behind a hole with a characteristic outline,” says Dr Stanis\u0142aw \u017bukowski, first author of the Physical Review Letters paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Solution pipes from various locations: (A) Smerdyna, Poland. Photo by P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw. (B) Guilderton, Australia. Photo by P. Szymczak, University of Warsaw, and (C) Swanscombe, England. Photo by J. Rhodes, courtesy of the British Geological Survey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nature\u2019s pattern<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But how can we extract information about the climate from hundreds of thousands of years ago from these ancient channels? The key was to construct a mathematical model of their evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCapturing the unchanging form required the use of advanced mathematical tools combining fluid dynamics and reactive transport. This allowed us to model how rainwater infiltrates limestone and shapes solution pipes,\u201d explains Prof. Piotr Szymczak from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, the corresponding author of the publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the researchers\u2019 findings, heavy rainfall favors the formation of elongated channels, whereas with lighter rainfall, the channels are wider and more rounded. In other words, the shape of solution pipes serves as a record of past climatic conditions that we can interpret today. Furthermore, as the researchers point out, understanding the mechanisms behind the formation of dissolution channels in rocks also has practical significance \u2013 it may help optimize processes such as underground CO\u2082 storage or oil extraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Soil-filled solution pipes in Canunda National Park, Australia. Photo: Ken Grimes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The text was originally published in Polish on the Serwis Naukowy UW website on September 17, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can channels carved into limestone reveal what our planet\u2019s climate was like hundreds of thousands of years ago? An international team of scientists \u2013 including researchers from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw \u2013 has shown how these formations preserve a record of past climate conditions and help us piece together Earth\u2019s climate history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":9804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[245],"tags":[1428,1896,1897,1893,1895,1898,1894,1387],"class_list":["post-9803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-faculty-of-physics","tag-fluid-dynamics","tag-institute-of-earth-sciences-in-orleans-university-of-florida","tag-karst","tag-paleoclimate","tag-reactive-transport","tag-solution-pipes","tag-university-of-warsaw"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9803"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9811,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9803\/revisions\/9811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}