Abstract
Windy Mouth Cave is a mostly abandoned paleospring conduit that drained water from the Big Levels surface northward to the Greenbrier River. The formation of the cave was controlled by a combination of structural and hydrologic factors. Geologic structure provided a pre-solutional network of faults, joints, and bedding planes in the bedrock that was later exploited by groundwater flux. The cave is situated on the western limb of the Sinks Grove Anticline. Beds dip gently to the northwest and strike generally N40–50°E in the cave. Conduits are primarily oriented along strike, while a smaller component is oriented sub-parallel to dip. In plan view, Windy Mouth Cave appears as a branchwork system with a minor anastomotic morphological element overprinted on the dominant dendritic pattern. There are three levels in the cave. Upper levels are phreatic tubes that are connected to small vadose canyons at their origin, and contain some active water. The middle level comprises mainly large phreatic passages, but with substantial clastic fills. The lower levels are well-developed canyon passages that run down dip and crosscut and incise below the main level of the cave. Conduit cross-section morphology is complicated by interbedded chert and shale layers in the Hillsdale Limestone host rock. The impermeable layers form resistant ledges that split individual conduits into multiple levels. Fluvial sediment deposits that are suitable for paleomagnetic analyses were not found in the upper levels, although the position and hydrologic genesis of the system suggest that the upper levels were formed first and are thus the oldest portion of the cave. A magnetically reversed sample was found near the base of one section that was presumably deposited during the reversal of the geomagnetic field which ended at 788 ka. This sets the minimum age of the cave. The modern-day hydrology is markedly different from the past. The drainage basin area is much smaller (~2 km2), and the resident streams have considerably less discharge. Much of the drainage has been pirated to the Scott Hollow drainage basin located south and west of Windy Mouth Cave.
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Acknowledgements
The following people provided exceptional assistance during the field work and other aspects of the study, which is greatly appreciated: Mike & Pat Dore, Sarah Benjamin, Verne Friberg, David McConnell, Bill Harbert, Natasha Demrovsky, Yvonne Droms, Laura Hudnall, Mike McFall, Steve Rhodes, Dave Seslar, Jenn Ulmer, Jim Hixson, and Julie Bennett. Financial support was provided by the Cave Conservancy Foundation (Virginia) and Richmond Area Speleological Society. We thank Ed McCarthy for allowing use of his photographs.
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Shank, D.A., Fucci, M.C., Sasowsky, I.D. (2018). Windy Mouth Cave. In: White, W. (eds) Caves and Karst of the Greenbrier Valley in West Virginia. Cave and Karst Systems of the World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65801-8_15
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