The Caves of Burnsville Cove, Virginia: Fifty Years of Exploration and Science

by William B. White (Editor)

Overview

This book highlights some of the most difficult and persistent exploration ever undertaken in the United States – in Burnsville Cove, a small limestone valley in west-central Virginia – while at the same time reviewing the scientific discoveries made in the area’s 116 km of caves in the course of 50 years. Overall, the book offers a unique combination of exploration and science by a conservation organization specifically dedicated to the preservation and study of the caves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319143903
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	04/21/2015
Series:	Cave and Karst Systems of the World
Edition description:	2015
Pages:	479
Product dimensions:	7.60(w) x 10.24(h) x 0.05(d)

About the Author

Dr. William B. White developed an early interest in caves and karst and started serious caving with an undergraduate summer job at Lincoln Caverns in 1951. In the 1950s he conducted investigations of many caves in central Pennsylvania and the Greenbrier Valley in West Virginia and has continued world-wide karst research projects for fifty years. Dr. White frequently collaborates with his wife, Dr. Elizabeth L. White, on karst hydrology studies and has been the advisor to numerous graduate students working on karst related topics. Dr. White authored numerous research papers and books dealing with karst. He was one of the first researchers in the United States to directly apply the laws of chemistry and physics to explain many of the seemingly mysterious characteristics of karst landforms. His papers on karst related topics cover a remarkably diverse range of specialties including geomorphic studies of karst drainage basins, hydraulics of water flow through limestone caves, kinetics of carbonate dissolution, transport of sediments through caves and the mineralogy of cave formations (speleothems). He is now retired from his dual appointment in the Department of Geosciences and in the Materials Research Laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University.

Table of Contents

Burnsville Cove.- The Discovery and Exploration of the Butler Cave-Sinking Creek System.- BCCS: The Organization.- Exploration of the Outlet Caves. In Memory of Ronald W. Simmons.- The Discovery and Initial Exploration of the Chestnut Ridge Cave System.- The Bobcat Camps.- Finding the Blarney Stone.- Burns, Baby, Burns.- Pancakes and the Saga of Our Maple Sugar Digs.- Exploration of Barberry Cave and the Construction of Big Bucks Pit.- Caves of the Water Sinks Depression.- Helictite Cave.- Probing the Wishing Well.- The Homestead and Other BCCS Properties.- Scientific Research in Burnsville Cove.- Geology of Burnsville Cove, Bath and Highland Counties, Virginia.- Hydrogeology of Burnsville Cove.- Geology of Breathing Cave.- Geology of the Butler Cave – Sinking Creek System.- Geology of the Chestnut Ridge Caves.- Geology of the Caves in the Northern Cove.- Meteorology of Butler Cave.- Minerals and Speleothems in Burnsville Cove Caves.- Geomorphic Evolution of the Burnsville Cove Caves.- Afterword: The Future.- Appendix: The Stratigraphic Nomenclature of Burnsville Cove, Bath and Highland Counties, Virginia.