Abstract
Goliath’s Cave is developed in the Ordovician Dubuque and Stewartville Formations of the Galena Group in Fillmore County, MN. The cave currently functions as an epigenic karst system with allogenic surface water sinking into the cave and a vadose stream running through the cave and resurging at springs a few kilometers away. Passages in the cave are locally controlled by vertical joints in the nearly flat-lying carbonate bedrock, but the water flow directions often do not correspond to the systematic joint directions. The cave contains straight, joint-controlled passages that appear to pre-date the current epigenic drainage systems. These old passages contain hypogenic features and are connected and modified by distinct, younger epigenic passages – often with very sharp transitions back and forth between the two passage types. The epigenic flow incises vadose canyons into the hypogenic passages. The hypogenic passages represent ancient, deep, compartmentalized flow systems that predate the present topography. The concept “ancient” is poorly constrained, however. These ancient cave passages are being reactivated by epigenic processes, while undergoing destruction by general erosion of the landscape.
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DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/9780991000951.1017
Included in
Goliath’s Cave, Minnesota: Epigenic Modification and Extension of Pre-Existing Hypogenic Conduits
Goliath’s Cave is developed in the Ordovician Dubuque and Stewartville Formations of the Galena Group in Fillmore County, MN. The cave currently functions as an epigenic karst system with allogenic surface water sinking into the cave and a vadose stream running through the cave and resurging at springs a few kilometers away. Passages in the cave are locally controlled by vertical joints in the nearly flat-lying carbonate bedrock, but the water flow directions often do not correspond to the systematic joint directions. The cave contains straight, joint-controlled passages that appear to pre-date the current epigenic drainage systems. These old passages contain hypogenic features and are connected and modified by distinct, younger epigenic passages – often with very sharp transitions back and forth between the two passage types. The epigenic flow incises vadose canyons into the hypogenic passages. The hypogenic passages represent ancient, deep, compartmentalized flow systems that predate the present topography. The concept “ancient” is poorly constrained, however. These ancient cave passages are being reactivated by epigenic processes, while undergoing destruction by general erosion of the landscape.
