STRUCTURAL SEGMENT ANALYSIS AND FLOW CONDITIONS IN THE DUNG HO WAY, FRIARS HOLE CAVE SYSTEM, WEST VIRGINIA

Analysis of the Dung Ho Way of Friars Hole Cave System shows that early flow was guided by prominent bed partings, systematic joints, faults, and by their intersections. The passages looped in a vertical plane, with lower loops at varying elevations, indicating early closed-conduit flow conditions. The bulk of the enlargement occurred following a transition to open-conduit flow. Lower parts of loops were incompletely entrenched, leading to relatively large remnant tubes at up- and downflow ends of isolated vadose trenches. The presence of relatively small remnant half tubes in the ceilings of the trenches, the incomplete entrenchment, and the paucity of coarse sediment suggest that the Dung Ho Way did not serve as a major route for the subsurface stream draining the Lobelia-Friars Hole valley system. Instead, the Dung Ho way served as a near-surface trunk accepting local inputs from the lower Friars Hole valley.