Clastic sediments in Bathers Cave, Virgina, are divided into distinct packages that reflect changes in water velocity, sediment source, surficial weathering conditions, and the cave deposiltional ...setting that are a function of Quaternary climate change. These packages are found iln the same stratigraphic order at various levels on ledges within passages of elliptical cross ssection in the upper part of the cave system. Sediment extractions performed on separate fractions from each layer indicate changes in oxide mineralogy and clay mineralogy through the sedimentary sequence. Additional samples from a nearby flood plain, a terrace soil, and a sinkhole pond also show mineralogical and geochemical changes. Goethite is abundant iln the lower layers of the cave sequence, while the upper layers have mostly ferrihydrite and abudant kaolinite.
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Cave sediments in the Lime Creek area of Eagle Country, Colorado were classified by composition and texture and were plotted on detailed maps of cave geomorphology. These maps were used to relate ...cave sediments to surface deposits and to assemble a depositional history of the caves.
Hellhole is an extensive (32 kilometer) cave system developed within Germany Valley (Pendleton County, West Virginia) on the flank of the Wills Mountain Anticline. The area can be described as a ...mature karst aquifer on the transitional margin of the Appalachian Plateau and Valley and Ridge physiographic provinces. Hellhole is the most extensive and deepest (158 meters) of several mapped caves in the area (others include Memorial Day Cave and Schoolhouse Cave). The upper bounding lithology is the McGlone Limestone. The cave penetrates through the Big Valley Formation and in to the New Market Limestone, a high purity unit that is mined locally. Faulting and folding are prominently exposed in several passages, but did not affect passage development in a noticeable way. The entrance sinkhole opens in to a large room, however, the morphology of the room suggests that the room formed the entrance by the intersection of passages followed by a vertical shaft intersecting from the surface. Passage orientation and strike of the bedrock are nearly identical (N25°E). Lower passages are generally down dip from upper (older) passages. Cave sediment and paleomagnetic analysis reveals that the minimum age of sediments analyzed are 1.070 million years old. Three hundred measurements of wall scallops show that paleowaters in the Western section flowed southwest (1.1 cubic meters per second). Paleoflow from the Southern portion of the cave flowed northward (0.94 meters cubic meters per second), and flow in the Northern section flowed southward (1.0 cubic meters per second). Most passages are 50 to 100 meters below the present land surface. Most of the cave appears to have formed under phreatic conditions, but the presence of thick clastic sediments in some locations attests to vadose invasion.
The significance of the stratigraphic record in Kents Cavern, Devon, United Kingdom, to the interpretation of the British Quaternary is confirmed on the basis of a thorough reexamination of the ...deposits in concert with 2 new Al-Be cosmogenic and 34 new thermal ionization mass spectrometry U-Th dates. The deposits show evidence of complex reworking in response to periglaciation, and the main flowstone deposit is a multilayered complex spanning marine isotope stage (MIS) 11-3. The lowermost unit of fluvial sands is Cromerian or older. The second deposit, a muddy breccia of surficial periglacial solifluction material containing Acheulian artifacts, entered the cave during MIS 12 from high-level openings to the west. Cave bears denned in the cave during MIS 11, the Hoxnian interglacial; their bones are capped by an MIS 11 calcite flowstone layer. From MIS 11 onward, each interglacial period and the warmer interstadial periods (MIS 11, 10b, 9, 7, 6b, 5, and 3) produced calcite flowstone deposition in the cave; MIS 9 was particularly active. Each glacial or stadial period (MIS 10c, 10a, 8, 6c, 6a, 4, and 2) caused periglacial activity in the cave, during which the thinner layers of calcite were fractured by frost heave and redistributed by solifluction. This sequence was interrupted during MIS 3-2 with the introduction of sandy and stony clastic sediments from entrances to the east, and finally cemented by the uppermost layer of MIS 1 flowstone. This is the first publication of well-dated and clearly documented evidence of frost heaving in interior cave passages. The Kents Cavern record of continuous, repeated sedimentation events followed by frost shattering and remobilization events over the past 500 k.y. is probably unique in the karst literature and establishes Kents Cavern as a site of international scientific interest.
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