Cave & Karst Science (ISSN 1356-191X)

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Contents of Cave & Karst Science 42(1)

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Cave and Karst Science (iv + 56pp) (PDF 10.4MB)        Individual articles may be available below

GUNN, John and David LOWE (eds.). (2015). Cave and Karst Science 42(1). Buxton: British Cave Research Association. ISSN 1356-191X. iv + 56pp, A4, with photos, maps and diagrams.
This issue has a cover date of 2015 (April) and was published in April 2015.

The Transactions of the British Cave Research Association

Layman's Summaries

Some of the articles in this issue are explained in a layman's summary. Look for the 'Summary' icons below, or download the article from here: HTML 13KB  

Front cover photo (page i) (PDF 369KB)     

by Phil WOLSTENHOLME.
Front cover photograph: As part of this Issue's appreciation of Dr Trevor Ford, the front cover shows an upslope view of Ford's Cavern in Speedwell Cavern, Castleton, Derbyshire – just one part of a magnificient and intriguing cave system that has been of ongoing interest to Trevor during most of his long and varied career as a caver and cave scientist. More images and details of this part of Speedwell Cavern are presented in the contributions that make up "Reports and notes on the Pit Props stopes and chambers, Speedwell Cavern, Castleton, Derbyshire, UK" on pages 6–12 of this Issue. (Photograph by Phil Wolstenholme).

 

Notes for Contributors (page ii) (PDF 260KB)     

 

Contents (p1) (PDF 354KB)     

 

Editorial (p2) (PDF 356KB)     

by John GUNN and David LOWE.

 

Dr Trevor D Ford OBE: A brief appreciation on his 90th Birthday (pp3-5) (PDF 657KB)     

by John GUNN, David J LOWE and Richard P SHAW.
Includes a bibliography of Dr Ford's Cave-, karst- and mine-related publications.
Summary: For layman's summary see HTML 13KB  
Classification: Report.

Bibliograph: GUNN, John; David J LOWE and Richard P SHAW. (2015). Dr Trevor D Ford OBE: A brief appreciation on his 90th Birthday. Cave and Karst Science 42(1), pp3-5.

 

Reports and notes on the Pit Props stopes and chambers, Speedwell Cavern, Castleton, Derbyshire, UK (pp6-12) (PDF 1.4MB)     

by John GUNN.
Gunn summarises and introduces the following reports.
i) Speedwell Cavern, Castleton, UK - Ford's Cavern: some enigmas (Trevor D Ford), p6.
ii) The Pit Props stopes and caverns, Speedwell Cavern, Castleton, Derbyshire, UK (Wayne Sheldon and Phil Wolstenholme), p7.
iii) Sediments in the Pit Props stopes, Speedwell Cavern, Castleton, Derbyshire, UK (Richard P Shaw), p10.
iv) Mineralization in the Pit Props stopes, Speedwell Cavern, Castleton, Derbyshire, UK (Noel E Worley),p11.
Summary: For layman's summary see HTML 13KB  
Classification: report.

Bibliograph: GUNN, John. (2015). Reports and notes on the Pit Props stopes and chambers, Speedwell Cavern, Castleton, Derbyshire, UK. Cave and Karst Science 42(1), pp6-12.

 

Experimental light-emitting diode illumination in the excursion route of Shulgan-Tash Cave (South Urals, Bashkortostan Republic, Russia (pp13-16) (PDF 918KB)     

by Shamil R ABDULLIN and Ildar A GAINUTDINOV.
Trial use of light-emitting diode illumination along the excursion route of Shulgan-Tash (Kapova) Cave between August 2011 and November 2013 led to no visible lamp flora growth; this might relate to the low level of illumination employed during the trial. During the related investigation 13 cyanoprokaryota and algae taxa were identified in the cave, but these did not form visible growths. Cyanoprokaryota and algae were not evident in culture media prepared from 258 samples. The investigation revealed that the qualitative and quantitative composition of cyanoprokaryota and algae show no valid correlation (p > 0.05) with temperature, airstream direction and rate of flow, number of tourists during various periods, artificial illumination, or whether the lights are fixed or stationary. However, air humidity shows a valid positive correlation with species number of the organisms (correlation coefficient = 0.27; p < 0.05). Among the three areas studied, Stalagmite Hall with its relatively high air humidity is in the greatest potential danger of development of lamp flora under artificial light. In case where illumination sources are fixed, implementation of regular monitoring of lamp flora growth is essential.
Summary: For layman's summary see HTML 13KB  
Classification: Report.
Date: Received: 11 July 2014; Accepted: 19 January 2015.
Keywords: light-emitting diode illumination, lamp flora, Shulgan-Tash Cave.

Bibliograph: ABDULLIN, Shamil R and Ildar A GAINUTDINOV. (2015). Experimental light-emitting diode illumination in the excursion route of Shulgan-Tash Cave (South Urals, Bashkortostan Republic, Russia. Cave and Karst Science 42(1), pp13-16.

 

An Optical Brightening Agent dye trace at Shep Pot, Leck Fell, Lancashire, UK (pp17-19) (PDF 768KB)     

by Ian PEACHEY and Krystyna KOZIOL.
An Optical Brighting Agent (OBA) dye trace was conducted to determine the fate of water sinking at Shep Pot (425m long; 82m deep), an active cave located high on Leck Fell (~370m aOD). Detectors were placed at nine locations but the only positive tracer recovery was from Curry Inlet in Notts II after a period of 25 hours, under moderate flow conditions.
Summary: For layman's summary see HTML 13KB  
Classification: Report.
Date: Received: 05 December 2014; Accepted: 18 March 2015.

Bibliograph: PEACHEY, Ian and Krystyna KOZIOL. (2015). An Optical Brightening Agent dye trace at Shep Pot, Leck Fell, Lancashire, UK. Cave and Karst Science 42(1), pp17-19.

 

Britain's longest maze cave: Hudgill Burn Mine Caverns, Cumbria, UK (pp20-41) (PDF 4.7MB)     

by John DALE, Tony HARRISON, Pete ROE and Pete RYDER.
In 1816 miners in the Hudgill Burn Lead Mine near Alston in Cumbria broke through from a mine level into "a [natural] cavity which was large enough to travel in". However they and later Georgian and Victorian "tourist" visitors only explored a few hundred metres of what was clearly an extensive maze cave before the mine closed and the subsequent collapse of mine passages rendered the cave inaccessible. In the late 1990s the Cumbria Amenity Trust Mining History Society reopened the mine and regained access to the cave. Over 2013–2014 the Moldywarps Speleological Group has carried out a thorough exploration and survey of the system.
The cave is in the Great Limestone at the top of the Viséan and is sandwiched between beds of sandstone and shale. The phreatic network system has a reticulate geometry and is enclosed in an area of about 34,000m² with most passages aligned on and parallel to four major joint sets. In contrast to many maze caves, the system is two-dimensional comprising only one storey, and lies on an essentially planar surface. The cave has a surveyed plan length of 13.24km, making it the longest maze cave in Britain. The system shows some of the characteristics of transverse hypogenic speleogenesis, having no apparent relationship to the present landscape, a high passage density and high areal coverage. However, it is the presence of several dissolution features known as the morphological suite of rising flow that provides support for the hypothesis that the maze cave system has developed by hypogenic rather than epigenic means. The proximity of mineral veins containing galena and cerussite, the former oxidised by secondary mineralization processes to yield the latter and sulphuric acid, has probably influenced passage inception and development.
A distinctive feature of the cave is the presence on all walls and ceilings of "sooty" black or dark brown deposits, identified by XRD and Raman microspectroscopy to be a highly zinc-sorbed birnessite-type phyllomanganate with a structure and zinc content that approaches chalcophanite. The source of the zinc is probably sphalerite, originally present as a primary mineral, that has undergone subsequent oxidation to smithsonite, convertible to soluble cations capable of sorption into birnessite-type minerals. The presence of these phyllomanganate deposits indicates the probable action of cave microorganisms in assisting the oxidation of Mn(II) oxides to tri- and tetra-valent species and the further dissolution of cave features through acidic metabolic by-products. %K maze cave, history, exploration, hypogenic, geomorphology, sulphuric acid speleogenesis, birnessite, geomicrobiology, Northern Pennines.
Summary: For layman's summary see HTML 13KB  
Classification: Paper.
Date: Received: 28 November 2014; Accepted: 29 January 2015.

Bibliograph: DALE, John; Tony HARRISON, Pete ROE and Pete RYDER. (2015). Britain's longest maze cave: Hudgill Burn Mine Caverns, Cumbria, UK. Cave and Karst Science 42(1), pp20-41.

 

The caves of Giggleswick Scar – examples of deglacial speleogenesis?_ (pp42-53) (PDF 2.0MB)     

by Phillip J MURPHY, Trevor L FAULKNER, Thomas C LORD and John A THORP.
The prominent Giggleswick Scar at the South Craven Fault extremity of the Carboniferous limestone of the Askrigg Block in North Yorkshire, UK, contains relict phreatic caves whose speleogenesis is enigmatic. This paper examines the local geomorphological evidence and proposes that some, but not necessarily all, karst features along and above the Scar formed after the Last Glacial Maximum. Building on a previous deglacial model for the Yorkshire Dales, it is hypothesized that inception fractures and bedding plane partings were created during isostatic uplift. These were then likely enlarged by dissolution in cold unsaturated meltwater beneath a local flowing deglacial ice-dammed lake that formed initially at an altitude of c.300m, with a catchment area of c. 2km². Rising cupolas outside Gully Cave were probably formed at c. 18ka BP by meltwater flowing up into a moulin within the ice, which continued to be cold-based farther south. As the ice-sheet slowly downwasted, the surface of the lake would have widened and lowered past the newly-formed cave entrances. Some of these were probably enlarged by freeze-thaw and lake-ice push and pull processes. Indeed, the heights of some enlarged entrances correspond to proposed stabilizing lake overflow levels. It is also assumed that the local ice-dammed lake coalesced with the main Settle glacial lake, until a jökulhlaup created a ravine above pre-existing glacial scoops in the limestone cliff. Thereafter, the lake split into two parts on each side of Buckhaw Brow, whilst still inundating the lower caves. If this hypothesis applies, it has wider implications for cave speleogenesis and sedimentation in the Yorkshire Dales.
Summary: For layman's summary see HTML 13KB  
Classification: Paper.
Date: Received: 07 July 2014; Accepted: 12 February 2015.
Keywords: Cupola, deglaciation, dissolution, Giggleswick, ice-dammed lake, inception, jökulhlaup, tectonic.

Bibliograph: MURPHY, Phillip J; Trevor L FAULKNER, Thomas C LORD and John A THORP. (2015). The caves of Giggleswick Scar – examples of deglacial speleogenesis?_. Cave and Karst Science 42(1), pp42-53.

 

PhD Thesis Abstract: Travelling in the Underground [German title: Reisen ins Unterirdische] (2013) (p54) (PDF 301KB)     

by Johannes MATTES.
A Cultural History of Cave Exploration in Austria and the World. PhD-thesis in German. University of Vienna (Austria), 2013. 489p. (available for interlibrary loan from the Austrian National Library).
Classification: Forum.

 

Speleothem U-series constraints on scarp retreat rates and landscape evolution: an example from the Severn valley and Cotswold Hills gull-caves, UK (p54)  For download see previous item

by Andrew R FARRANT, Stephen R NOBLE, A J Mark BARRON, Charles A SELF and Stephen R GREBBY.
An extended abstract is given of this paper, published in 2015 by the Journal of the Geological Society, Vol.172(1), 63–76.
Classification: Forum.

 

Correspondence (pp55-56) (PDF 546KB)     

by Trevor SHAW, Alan JEFFREYS and Steven CRAVEN.
Classification: Forum.

 

New eBook: Caves of County Clare and South Galway (p56) (PDF 446KB)     

This classic caving guidebook, has now been republished by the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society as an eBook.
Classification: Forum.

 

Research Fund and Grants (page iii) (PDF 230KB)     

 

Back cover photos (page iv) (PDF 320KB)     

A selection of photographs related to Trevor Ford's speleological activies over the years. See contents page for list of photos and credits.