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Limestone
and Karst:
Caves
in Virginia
If
you grew up in Virginia, you probably made the
requisite trip with family or schoolmates to Luray
Caverns or one of its show cave sisters, Shenandoah,
Endless or Skyline. There are, in fact, eight
commercial caves in our state. In addition to those
named, there’s Caverns of Natural Bridge Village;
Crystal Caverns at Hupp’s Hill; Dixie Caverns and
Grand Caverns.
Beyond
these spectacular tourist attractions with their
underground lakes, light shows and musical
stalagmites and stalactites, more than 4,200 known
caves exist in the Old Dominion. Most are “wild”
and 95 percent are on private land, according to the
Virginia Speleological Survey, a non-profit group of
cave explorers. The longest cave surveyed in the Old
Dominion is 22 miles and the deepest is almost a
quarter of a mile below the surface. (VA
Speleological Society.)
What
accounts for Virginia’s wealth of dark recesses?
It’s a matter of geology. As you may recall from
grade-school science, limestone forms as the
compressed remains of sea animals on the floors of
ancient seas. Our region was once such a sea. Then,
according to some theories, the continents of North
America and Europe bumped into each other creating
the Appalachian Mountains. The collision also lifted
blocks of limestone close to the surface, creating
cracks and crevices. Over millennia, surface water
containing carbonic acid seeped into the crevices
and hollowed out caverns. The result is karst – a
landscape dotted with sinkholes, springs and streams
that sink into caverns below the surface. In
Virginia most caves are found in karst in 27
counties in the western part of the state.
Caves
have fascinated Virginia’s inhabitants since the
early days of the Commonwealth. “In the lime-stone
country, there are many caverns of very considerable
extent,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1781. He was
the first to map a large cavern known as Madison’s
Cave, near the present town of Grottoes in the
Shenandoah Valley. A nearby show cave, Grand
Caverns, was discovered in 1804 by a trapper named
Bernard Weyer who tracked an animal down a hole
which led to a large cavern. It opened as Weyer’s
Cave in 1806 and remained an attraction throughout
the 19th century. Weyer’s Cave became Grand
Caverns in the 1920s, but has been a tourist
attraction longer than any other commercial cave in
the country.
Caves
have even inspired literary efforts. "Arsareth:
A Tale of the Luray Caverns," a romance,
was published in 1893. It fantasized that the lost
tribes of Israel once lived in Virginia caverns.
Another work inspired by the same cave, "Tongo,
the Hero of the Luray Caverns," appeared in
1922 as a fictionalized history of Native Americans
in the region.
Virginia’s
caves are so bountiful they even have their own
administrative body – the Virginia Cave Board. The
12-member board is tasked with protecting our
underground labyrinths. It was established in 1979
as part of Virginia’s Cave Protection Act. The Virginia Code enumerates the
board's powers to “maintain a current list of all
significant caves in Virginia and report any real
and present danger to such caves;” “facilitate
data gathering and research efforts on caves;” and
“advise civil defense authorities on the present
and future use of Virginia caves in civil
defense.” In Virginia, it is illegal to remove
anything from a cave, or to leave anything behind
(including human waste). The law applies to both
private and public caves. (VA
Cave Protection Act.)
It
was human encroachment that finally led to cave
protection efforts. Unique but fragile ecosystems
were endangered, as well as archeological remains.
Virginia’s caves support eight different species
of bats, including the endangered big-eared bat, now
the official state bat. Crickets, daddy long-legs
and odd eyeless and pigmentless invertebrates (often
insects) live on the walls. Such invertebrates
differ from their above-ground relatives, since
color and vision are unnecessary in a cave. (VA
Division of Mineral Resources.)
Researchers
also have identified 50 prehistoric burial caves
that date from the Late Woodland period (A.D.
900-1600) in southwestern Virginia. In a study
reported in the Fall 2001 issue of the "Midcontinental
Journal of Archeology," the authors visited
24 burial sites, all of which had been vandalized.
(“Southwest Virginia’s Burial Caves: Skeletal
Biology, Mortuary Behavior, and Legal Issues,”
v.26 i2 p219). The researchers were alarmed enough
they refused, in the article, to reveal the exact
location of some of the sites where remains were
found.
Among
those also interested in cave conservation are
cavers, adventurers who are neither afraid of the
dark nor claustrophobic. The National Speleological
Society, an organization of cavers, sponsors 18
clubs, known as grottoes, in Virginia, from the
Fairfax Underground Network in Falls Church to the
New River Valley Grotto in Radford and the Tidewater
Grotto in Virginia Beach. Caving is not for the
faint of heart. It often involves crawling through
mud or water on hands, knees or belly. Cave
temperatures, which average around 54 degrees, can
induce hyperthermia – a lowering of body
temperature that can lead to death. Many caves have
pits or vertical drops that require climbing
expertise and special equipment. Experienced cavers
always carry two back-up lights in the pure darkness
of caves, as well as wear a lighted helmet.
J.R.R.
Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings series,
understood this attraction to dark, risky
underground worlds. Certainly, his Gollum was a cave
dweller. The Virginia Speleological Society even
co-opted a Tolkien quote for its Web site: “That,
of course, is the dangerous part about caves: you
don't know how far they go back, sometimes, or where
a passage behind may lead to, or what is waiting for
you inside.”
With
4,200 caves to explore, some in Virginia seem
attracted to such unknowns.
NEXT:
Tunnel Vision: Blasting Through Rock, Burrowing
Under the Bay
--
August 8, 2005
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