page_title: Pulo di Altamura
section_title: Origin and evolution
hierarchical_section_title: Pulo di Altamura / Origin and evolution
caption_attribution_description: English: Pulo di Altamura - North North-East lama (Karst geomorphic feature found in Murge, Italy)
context_page_description: Pulo di Altamura is a doline located on the Murge plateau. It is the largest doline in that region and it is located about 6 kilometers north-west of the city of Altamura. It shares the local toponym pulo with other large dolines of the region, i.e. Pulicchio di Gravina, Pulo di Molfetta and Pulicchio di Toritto.
context_section_description: A few hypotheses have been formulated about the origin of this doline, some of which are more plausible than others, but almost all of them are based on karst processes. Some pseudoscientific theories incorrectly trace the origin of the doline to a meteorite or to unspecified subsidence phenomena.
  The origin of Pulo di Altamura, as well as that of the other dolines in Apulia pulicchio di Gravina, pulo di Molfetta, Gurio Lamanna, grave Tre Paduli) can be easily explained through karst processes, that is the double action (mechanical and chemical) of rainwater on the heavily fractured limestone rock of the Murge plateau.
  Limeston rock itself is highly impermeable, but if heavily fractured, it exhibits high permeability, allowing rainwater to infiltrate, to physically erode the rock and also to chemically react with it.
  That's why the region of Murge plateau is almost everywhere highly permeable. In this arid region, rivers and lakes are more rare, substituted by the so-called lama, very common in Murge. Lamas are furrows due to the erosion of rainwater and they are confused with rivers. In lamas, only a small fraction of the total amount of rainwater flows on top of it, while the remaining part infiltrates and flows underground as groundwater, following almost the same direction (horizontally) as the lama.
  Pulo di Altamura is the lowest point of a vast rainwater drainage basin. The rainwater of the drainage basin reaches Pulo di Altamura through two main lamas, one in direction North North-East and the other in direction North-West.
  Pulo di Altamura's drainage basin is so big, that it's been defined by Carmelo Colamonico "one of the largest absorption areas in Apulia". The amount of water flowing through the endpoint  has formed, over the millennia, the doline, both eroding the rock mechanically and chemically dissolving it.
  Moreover, Carmelo Colamonico, in 1917, first hypothesized that a pre-existing cave (acting as a sinkhole) may have collapsed, leading to the formation of the doline. In this case, the doline would fall into the category of the so-called "collapse dolines". Nevertheless, the geologic landform generated in this way would have been so small, that karst action would be necessary to explain the formation of the doline.
caption: Pulo di Altamura - NNE lama
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