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.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Anthony, D.M., and D.E. Granger. 2004. A Late Tertiary origin for multilevel caves along the western escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee and Kentucky established by cosmogenic 26Al and 10Be. Journal of Cave and Karst Studies 66 (2): 46–55.
Curry, M.D. 2002. Sediments from an abandoned karst groundwater conduit: Windy Mouth Cave, Greenbrier County, West Virginia: University of Akron (Ohio) undergraduate student project in geology, 23 p. + appendices.
Dasher, G. 2002. The Caves and Karst of West Virginia. Barrackville, WV: West Virginia Association for Cave Studies Bulletin 19, 264pp.
Davies, W.E. 1958. Caverns of West Virginia, vol. 19(A), 330pp. Morgantown, WV: Geological and Economic Survey.
Davies, W.E. 1965. Caverns of West Virginia, Supplement to Volume 19(A), 72pp. Morgantown. WV: West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey.
Davis, S.B. 1999. Aquifer development in a folded and fractured limestone: The Scott Hollow drainage basin, Monroe County, West Virginia, 210pp. Masters Thesis, University of Akron.
Davis, J., and D. Peters. 1960. Windy Mouth Cave. Unpublished manuscript describing the cave by the surveyors, 3 single-spaced typed pages, dated April, 1960.
Deike, G.H. 1988. Geology. In Caves of the organ cave plateau, Greenbrier County, West Virginia, ed. P.J. Stevens, vol. 9, 13–39. Barrackville, WV: West Virginia Speleological Survey Bulletin.
Dore, M. 1995. Windy Mouth Cave. In Underground in the Appalachians, A guidebook for the 1995 NSS convention, ed. C. Zokaites, 92–94. Huntsville, AL: National Speleological Society.
Granger, D.E., J.W. Kirchner, and R.C. Finkel. 1997. Quaternary downcutting rate of the New River, Virginia, measured from differential decay of cosmogenic 26Al and 10Be in cave-deposited alluvium. Geology 25 (2): 107–110.
Granger, D.E., D. Fabel, and A.N. Palmer. 2001. Pliocene-Pleistocene incision of the Green River, Kentucky, determined from 26Al and 10Be in Mammoth Cave sediments. Geological Society of America Bulletin 113 (7): 825–836.
Gulden, B. 2017. USA Longest Caves (list as of Nov. 28, 2016). http://www.caverbob.com/usalong.htm. Accessed May 6 2017.
Heller, S.A. 1980. A hydrogeologic study of the Greenbrier Limestone karst of central Greenbrier County, West Virginia, 167pp. PhD. dissertation, West Virginia University.
Jones, W.K. 1997. Karst Hydrology Atlas of West Virginia, 96pp. Charles Town, WV: Karst Waters Institute Special Publication No.4.
Kulander, B.R., and S.L. Dean. 1986. Structure and tectonics of Central and Southern Appalachian Valley and Ridge and Plateau Provinces, West Virginia and Virginia. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin 70 (11): 1674–1684.
Ogden, A.E. 1976. The hydrogeology of the central Monroe County karst, West Virginia, 263pp. Ph.D. Dissertation, West Virginia University.
Palmer, A.N. 1974. Geologic influence upon cave passage orientation in Ludington Cave, Greenbrier County, West Virginia. In Proceedings of the fourth conference on Karst geology and hydrology, H.W. Rauch, and E. Werner, 33–40. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey.
Palmer, A.N. 1991. Origin and morphology of limestone caves. Geological Society of America Bulletin 103: 1–21.
Peters, D., and J. Davis. 1960. (Map of) Windy Mouth Cave. Baltimore Grotto Newsletter (National Speleological Society) 3 (7): 115–116. Reprinted in Speleo Digest 1962, ed. A.P. Haarr, and W.T. Plummer, 1–231. Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh Grotto of the National Speleological Society.
Sasowsky, I.D., W.B. White, and V.A. Schmidt. 1995. Determination of stream incision rate in the Appalachian Plateaus by using cave sediment magnetostratigraphy. Geology 23 (5): 415–418.
Shank, D.A. 2002. Hydrologic and structural controls on the evolution of a karst aquifer, Windy Mouth Cave, West Virginia, 121pp. M.S. Thesis, University of Akron.
Springer, G.S., J.S. Kite, and V.A. Schmidt. 1997. Cave sedimentation, genesis, and erosional history in the Cheat River Canyon, West Virginia. Geological Society of America Bulletin 109 (5): 524–532.
Wells, D. 1950. Lower middle Mississippian of Southeastern West Virginia. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin 34 (5): 882–922.
White, W.B. 1988. Geomorphology and hydrology of Karst Terrains, 464. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Whittemore, R.E. 1971. Windy Mouth Cave. The Region Record, (Virginia Region of the National Speleological Society) 1 (4): 114–115.
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.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
15.1 Electronic Supplementary Material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
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
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65801-8_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-65800-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-65801-8
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)