Abstract
The cave descriptions and maps were used to produce a highly tentative chronology for the development of the caves of Burnsville Cove. It begins with the establishment in the late Cretaceous to mid-Tertiary of the Schooley erosion surface. There may have been early hydrothermal development of deep solution pathways by the Eocene volcanism. Cave development accelerated in the Miocene by south-flowing water that created the upper level trunk passages in Chestnut Ridge. The Bullpasture River was captured along the Water Sinks lineament producing a reversal of gradients and a reversal of drainage to its present discharge points in the Bullpasture River springs. There was massive sediment in-filling in the mid-Pleistocene followed by removal of the sediment and further modification of the cave systems from the mid-Pleistocene to the present.
With a contribution by Benjamin F. Schwartz and Daniel H. Doctor.
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White, W.B. (2015). Geomorphic Evolution of the Burnsville Cove Caves. In: White, W. (eds) The Caves of Burnsville Cove, Virginia. Cave and Karst Systems of the World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14391-0_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14391-0_24
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