1995-08-15: The Land Downunder: The Life of Virginia's Caves (part 1)

Vol. III, No. XXXIII

Transcription:

Ashbrook (SVCC)
Rogers (VXI)
Shelton (CVC)
Tease
The Land Downunder:
With Good Reason
Vol. III, No. XXXIII
The Life of Virginia's Caves
Today on With Good Reason, we go under the mountain and then
scale to the top as we look at Virginia's caves and the rugged
majesty of its highest peak. I'm your host, Carolyn Elliott.
Music
Background
It was a strange moment -- to say the least -- on February 28th
of this year for drivers travelling on I-81 in Southwest,
Virginia. Suddenly a large part of the road dropped down into
the depths below. The cave-in, which was near the Dixie Caverns
exit on the interstate, was created when a sinkhole opened up
into one of the Blue Ridge's hidden caves.
Virginia is filled with such caverns, inaccessible until
conditions in the. state's topography shift enough to create a
portal into the living world below. Many caves in the Blue Ridge
are in Karst topography, or areas of limestone that water has
been slowly eroding for centuries forming thousand of miles of
unexplored passages.
Rogers
And we're still in the cave finding, I would say, portion of
our history. In Bu.rope, most caves have been located. They
do find the occasional new one here and there but we're
still finding new caves. Sometimes sinkholes appear.
Sometimes we intersect caves in our man-made projects.
Gary Rogers is an assistant professor of engineering from
Virginia Military Institute, and an expert on caves in Virginia.
Joining him for our discussion of the hidden treasures in
Virginia's caves is Craig Ashbrook, professor of environmental
management at Southwest Virginia Conmunity College.
INTERVIEW
Elliott
Gentlemen, welcome. Craig Ashbrook, how many caves are there
in Virginia?
Ashbrook
One count shows around 2,300 caves with many of the caves
that were looked at weren't really counted because of their
length. Maybe 20, 30 feet long, so there's an estimate now I
think of somewhere--between 500 and 1,000 other caves that
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actually didn't get included in the original count of 2,300.
Rogers
For every cave you see, there's probably ten you don't see.
Most of the caves out there are not heavily formated. Most are
fairly bleak, have large blocks of rock termed "breakdown"
throughout them, and we probably wouldn't pay money to see them.
Elliott
Well, Gary Rogers, you explore caves for work and also for
hobby, why do you find caves intriguing?
Rogers
I would say it brings out the explorer in me. I've always
liked to hike. I've liked to look around that next bend in the
road overtop the next crest of the hill, and caves have lots of
bends. There's the history aspect of it. When I was younger,
and I've been caving since the mid-'70s, salt-peter mining
during the revolutionary and civil war, I was always fascinated
by that. The hoppers and what not used to extract the potassium
nitrate for making gunpowder. There's also the peace, the
solitude, I even like the smell of the damp clay and mud and
certainly you don't have to like mud to be a caver but it helps
if you form a liking to that substance.
Elliott
Craig Ashbrook.
Ashbrook
Well, the formations themselves probably were one of the
things I got caught up with. The formation of things called
"soda straws" and "helictites," things of that nature that can be
not only very beautiful but also unusual. Helictites seem to
defy the law of gravity and grow in all different directions.
Just literally hundreds of different types of not only formations
but mineral concentrations within the cave. The study of
fossils. You can go into a lot of the limestone caves here and
find fossils of different varieties, depending on the age of the
rock.
Elliott
Well, let's talk a little about the formated caves.
Virginia, particularly along Skyline Drive on the Blue Ridge
Parkway has caves that attract millions of visitors a year.
There's Grand Caverns, which was discovered in 1804 and is near
Harrisonburg, and Luray Caverns. Both are famous for some
spectacular formations and brilliant colors. Craig Ashbrook,
what causes the beauty of those caves?
Ashbrook
The solution of limestone takes place and then redeposits
inside the cave as water evaporates, leaving calcite in
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spectacular forms, dripstone and flowstone. Sometimes multicolored,
depending on the type of minerals that are included with
the water as they redeposit inside the cave.
Elliott
So the colors are actually from mineral pigments that are
leached out as the water seeps through?
Ashbrook
Yes, it could be iron, it may give it a light, rust color or
it could be just pure calcite which would be white or clear. And
then you could get into some exotic mineral colors in other parts
of the world but here we've got some really nice calcite
deposits.
Elliott
Gary, what's the difference between a "stalactite" and a
"stalagmite"?
Rogers
Stalactites are formed from the ceiling or the top of the
caves. Stalagmites are the drip at the bottom below the
stalactite.
Elliott
Well now in Virginia there's
anthodite, have I got that right?
crystal? Professor Ashbrook.
Ashbrook
also something called an
Some kind of sparkling
Anthodite is a collective term. Typically, an anthodite is
composed mostly of calcite. It's really, I don't know whether
people know what aragonite is, it's a type of calcite deposit.
Elliott
Tell us what we're looking at in the cave to identify these
things.
Ashbrook
These would be needle-shaped or flower-shaped types of
formations that extend from possibly other formations. They can
be composed of gypsum. These things are very, very delicate and
are very, very beautiful.
Elliott
For those people who are planning on visiting some of these
caves, there have been problems in the major parks with the
amount of tourists going through damaging the cave.
Ashbrook
Yes that's true. As tourists enter the cave they take with
them spores and even seeds and things of that nature and the
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lighting in the cave will allow these things, once they fall off
of the tourists clothing, these things will grow and can actually
destroy the formations that are in the cave.
Elliott
What kind of spores are they bringing in?
Ashbrook
They would probably take in something like spores from
mosses and things of that nature which would actually get
deposited and grow in a very humid climate like a cave actually
is in this part of the country.
Elliott
And what kind of damage would that cause?
Ashbrook
Well actually it destroys the formation. The calcite begins
to break down and the formations can literally die and when they
die they dry up and can crumble.
Rogers
We forget sometimes that unlike cutting a tree that the
stalactite or stalagmite does take this extremely long period of
development. If they are damaged or broken, it may continue, it
may continue in a different fashion, or it may not. As you visit
a cave, one of the conunon echoed cautions is "Please do not touch
the speleothem. Your hands have oils on them. You may put a
little bit of oil on that speleothem. The water may flow around
that patch of oil. You can effectively kill what is considered a
living thing.
I think of the number of pools I've seen, typically near the
end of a tourist cave, that have become wishing wells. People
tossing pennies and coins in and the management sometimes
encourages this practice. This has to be detrimental to the cave
waters as much or more than just constructing the pathways.
Ashbrook
I think tourists don't realize if they throw pennies in a
pool somewhere that the copper can actually leech out in the
water and bring up the toxicity levels of the water to the point
that any biota in the water would be killed.
Elliott
If that cave ecosystem is disrupted, does it just destroy
that ecosystem or does it also have a larger impact?
Ashbrook
It can have a larger impact. If you look at the drainage
system within karat regions or regions that caves occur, you will
find that groundwater drainage can be extensive and in many cases
if you've damaged an ecosystem within a cave at a particular
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location, the water that flows through that system can
go on even farther and do more damage later on. It may be a
source of drinking water for people somewhere down drainage and
they can end up literally contaminating the water and not really
realize that they've done that.
Rogers
It's hard to conceptualize at times. When you pour water on
a bar of soap it doesn't go through it, it goes around the
outside edges. Those edges are like the cracks, the joints in
limestone. Limestone is fairly impervious. Water doesn't flow
through it very readily. But it does flow very readily through
the solution channels, the joints and fissures that make up the
karstic geology, these sub-surface rock mass. And it can flow a
long way. And we are just now coming to grips with how far
through the results of researchers and dye-tracing, et cetera.
Blliott
How far the water from the cave actually goes?
Rogers
Actually goes, exactly.
Blliott
What's been the furthest that it's been traced in Virginia?
Ashbrook
The dye-tracing that's been done in Virginia that I'm
familiar with would run anywhere from one or two miles up to
about eight miles. Unfortunately, people don't realize that if
they throw something in a sinkhole here, it can damage water five
miles away, but it certainly can.
Rogers
And fairly quickly, the response time to dye-tracing can be
slow but it also can be very rapid.
, Blliott
Well we seem to be indicating that this is a very delicate
ecosystem. Let's talk about that a little bit. What makes the
cave ecosystem delicate and what makes it important?
Rogers
Let's look at what exists in a cave just off the top of our
heads here. We have what most people think about: (Blliott:
bats) bats of the various species that have their own series of
maligned faults that go with them. Bats are fairly harmless,
they're wonderful, small mammals that we don't know a lot about
but we're learning more about them.
Elliott
Important for insect control.
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Rogers
Yes, yes. It's important, for wild caves, not to visit
caves with populations in the winter months, from October until
about May. People are prone to do this, to touch a bat or
perhaps make it drop off the rock. This effectively kills the
bat when they're not active as they are in the rest of the year.
Ashbrook
Bats are true hibernating animals. You bring them out of
hibernation, the first thing they want to do is go eat. There's
nothing for them to eat in the wintertime so they would die.
Elliott
There are a lot of protected or endangered species that live
in caves, a certain type of mussel. And there was a controversy
in Lee County, which is in the very far, Southwest most part of
Virginia, and they were concerned that if they built an airport
the building around the airport, particularly of gas stations,
which causes you to sink these underground storage tanks for
gasoline, would affect the isopods. How important are protecting
tiny organisms like this? This is a small organism, almost
microscopic, looks almost like a grain of rice.
Ashbrook
Well what happens is you start to break down the food chain
within the cave and once one level of hierarchy is broken, then
the others above begin to crumble as well. Unfortunately people
don't realize that when you put tanks of petroleum in the ground
they can destroy not only the isopods but everything else with it
if the tanks begin to leak.
Elliott
And this is an area that you've researched, underground
storage tanks.
Ashbrook
We've had situations where monitoring wells were literally
drilled through cave systems to monitor for leaky underground
storage tanks and the tanks were leaking and the leechate from
the tanks literally ran down the well casing into the cave system
and has effectively killed the cave. I'm not sure that you can
ever clean something like that up.
Rogers
It's extremely difficult. The current law mandates that all
subsurface tanks have extensive liner systems and ways to monitor
but it is very difficult to make a liner totally impervious.
There is almost always some leakage.
Elliott
I want to get back to the tourist who are going to caves
that are not the large attractive caves like Luray and Grand
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Caverns but the smaller caves. People who are interested in
spelunking into small caverns.
Rogers
The "wild" caves.
Elliott
The wild caves. And Gary Rogers, you've done a lot of work
spelunking and also researching these caves. What are some of
the things that tourists in the summer who go explore and find
one of these caves, what are some of the precautions and laws
that they need to follow?
Rogers
You should never cave alone. You should go in a group, two,
three, four, is a nice size. Again, have an idea of what type of
cave it is. The personal protection, coveralls, gloves, three
sources of light, proper shoes. Not tennis shoes. Something
with lug soles is usually recommended. And to let somebody know
where you are going and when you're going to be back. Learn how
best to dress. Caves typically range in temperature from 50-60
degrees. It is a hostile environment by itself.
Elliott
Because of the temperature it's a hostile environment?
Rogers
Because of the temperature.
Elliott
Is that dangerous? Can you get hypothennia?
Rogers
Hypothermia, exactly. One of the fears of getting lost and
not moving is to die from hypothermia.
A person should have an idea of what type of cave it is. Is
it a fairly horizontal cave with a large passageway? Is it a
cave with vertical drops that you can come upon suddenly? And
caves change, as we noted before. Again, the current cave I'm
researching, on my last trip I noticed a vertical joint that had
opened up from waterflow that was not there the previous trip.
Elliott
Really? How far apart were the trips?
Rogers
The trips were less than a month apart. The joint that
opened up was in a clay floor that was sort of sticky, like the
bottom of a drying pond and the joint probably extended 15-20
feet in depth and was large enough to ...
Elliott
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Swallow you up?
Rogers
Let two or three people drop in, yes.
Elliott
Craig Ashbrook, where is the best cave in Virginia for
spelunking?
Ashbrook
The best cave, to me, is a cave in Russell County, Virginia
called "Smith's Drop". It's about a hundred feet to the bottom
and unless you're really well endowed with working on rope, I
wouldn't advise going in it. That's the reason it's so
beautiful, so spectacular, is because it's untouched. The cave
is not that long, it's about a mile in length, but otherwise the
formations would rival any formation at any commercial cave you
could find in Virginia.
Elliott
Gary Rogers?
Rogers
I suppose my favorite cave is one that no longer exists. It
was filled with aragonite crystals and formations so extensive
that you could not walk through the cave without unfortunately
damaging some of the formations. And the only way I could
justify doing the exploration was I doing research on a landslide
and the cave was a factor in the landslide. It was the most
heavily formated cave I've ever been in. Unfortunately the land
owner had the full right, as he was doing, to excavate the
material for production, dolomite. The cave was spectacular.
Multi-level stalactites, stalagmites. It was a shame to see it
go, but on the other hand we do need the progress, we do need the
minerals.
Elliott
I want to end with talking very briefly, Craig Ashbrook, if
you could very briefly run over the cave laws because there are
laws regulating what you can and can't do in these caves and the
way that you have to get into them if it's not a commercial cave.
Ashbrook
Yeah, the Virginia Cave Laws were passed approximately 15
years ago in an effort to protect the cave ecosystem itself. I
think the caver in general and the tourists should realize that
caves are protected by law. The formations are protected. Even
the surface landforms such as sinkholes are protected under this
law and they should make themselves aware of the details of it.
The fines can be very heavy in some cases. Particularly if
you're in a national park like Mammoth Cave National Park, we get
into federal problems with those.
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Elliott
It's up to $5,000 in Virginia for doing something with one
of those anthodites.
Ashbrook
Yeah, you can get pretty hefty fines smacked on you for
damaging those things because they are very delicate and they are
also very rare.
Elliott
Alright. Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining me on With
Good Reason.
Rogers
Thank you for the invitation.
Ashbrook
Thank you.
Music-Pipe Organ (America the Beautiful)
BRIDGE
We're listening to "America the Beautiful" performed on the organ
engineered using stalactites and stalagmites at Luray Caverns.
Virginia has seven tourist caves, most are open year-round for
more information, call the Virginia Department of Tourism at 804-
786-4484. This is With Good Reason, I'm your host, Carolyn
Elliott.