microgour

plural microgours

1. A very small gour or dam formed by mineral deposits.

   Microgours are a subtype of flowstone speleothems: Above to the left, furled pigotite rimstone dams and microgours in the granite cave system of O Folón (municipality of Vigo, province of Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain).

   2023, Avelino Núñez-Delgado, Esperanza Álvarez-Rodríguez, David Fernández-Calviño, The Environment in Galicia: A Book of Images, page 58

   3 more examples

   […] microgours or even into small rimstone pools. Thin sections of calcite flowstone cut perpendicular to crenulations show that these are formed of fibrous calcite crystals in bundles normal to the surface (T. Ford, 1988).

   1997, Carol A. Hill, Paolo Forti, Cave Minerals of the World, page 71

   These features build up in stream channels or on flow-stones. The height ranges from millimeters (microgours, often on the downstream faces of larger dams) to many metres. They may be single, or interlocking to create a staircase of pools. Rims are straight, curved or crenulated.

   2007, Derek Ford, Paul D. Williams, Karst Hydrogeology and Geomorphology, section 8.3.6 "Rimstone dams or gours", page 287

   […] microgours (a cave formation in the form of a stone dam) in vertically-oriented flowstone and those occurring in horizontal rimstone dams, can be separated by breaks in averaged measurements or by different distributions.

   2019, Stephen R. Mark, Pausing at the River Styx: An Administrative History of ..., page 293