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- E Tagged
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From http://www.rkci.org/library/history_easternky_karst.htm
1950: W. R. Jillson and students from Transylvania College in Lexington, survey lower levels of Sloans Valley (the commercial section then called Crystal Cave). Jillson privately publishes Geology of Crystal Cave in 1952.
http://www.kyphotoarchive.com/2014/09/0 ... cave-1950/
A group from Transylvania College, now Transylvania University, including Dr. Willard Rouse Jillson, head of the college’s Geology Department, Bob Jones and Oscar Hinton, explored Crystal Cave in Pulaski County in October 1950. The cave would soon be under water as Lake Cumberland was created by impounding the Cumberland River with the Wolf Creek Dam. This photo ran with a story about the creation of Lake Cumberland and the flooding of the Cumberland River valley. The story and photo were published in the Lexington Leader on Oct. 31, 1950.
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http://www.ksscaves.org/history/pulaski_simpson.htm
http://www.reocities.com/Heartland/Esta ... vcave.html
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http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewc ... og_fac_pub
Sloans Valley Cave, with 39.7 km of surveyed
passage, is the longest individual cave in eastern
Kentucky (Fig. 2.124). This very complex cave is
nestled in a hanging valley between the incised gorges
of the Upper Cumberland River and the South Fork
of the Cumberland River. Originally the Upper
Cumberland coursed through whitewater shoals
near Sloans Valley at an elevation of 195 m. An old
tourist portion of the cave, Cumberland Caverns (or
Crystal Cave), exited in the limestone cliffs above
the riverbed at the base of the St. Louis Limestone
(Malott and McGrain, 1977). Now these and other
portions of the cave below 220 m are permanently
submerged, and all passages 12 m above this level are
subject to seasonal inundation by the damming of
Lake Cumberland.
Sloans Valley Cave follows the basic configuration
of the valley that contains it (Fig. 2.124). The two
branches of the cave, the small northern Railroad
Tunnel and Screamin’ Willy section, and the much
larger southern Minton Hollow and Martin Creek
section, are composed of dendritic tributaries that
drain sinkholes and karst valleys. These branches convey water from
the sandstone plateau and coalesce at the Grand Central Spaghetti, a
three-dimensional maze of passages and collapse features. East of the
central junction, Sloans is characterized by large breakdown-strewn
passages at higher levels, such as the Appalachian Trail and the Big
Passage, which have cross sections more than 30 m in diameter. The
lower levels contain passages with elliptical cross sections up to 20 m
wide, most commonly near the Great Rock Sink (Fig. 2.124).
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