THE ROLE OF PALEO AND MODERN HYDROGEOLOGY IN CONCERT WITH DETAILED MAPPING AS TOOLS OF DISCOVERY IN THE HISTORIC SECTION OF MAMMOTH CAVE

Exploration in the Historic Section of Mammoth Cave was initiated by Native Americans about 4000 years ago, followed in the late 1700s by settlers, who were mostly focused on saltpeter mining. After the War of 1812, tourism drove exploration by slave guides, and even the production of an impressive map drawn from memory by slave guide Stephen Bishop. There have been many mapping efforts, but a map by Max Kaemper in 1908 and ongoing efforts by the Cave Research Foundation (CRF) have been most useful. Maps show where passage cross sections change significantly, and how segments of formerly intact passages align. In the cave surveying process, sketching passages to scale has driven systematic checking of every little void because making a detailed drawing requires being thorough. In the process, very obscure openings are found.

Research on paleohydrology in Mammoth Cave, particularly by Art and Peg Palmer, Will and Elizabeth White plus George Deike, provides a foundation for continuing work. Water that flowed long ago through now dry cave passages left clues about the cave's developmental history. Scallops on bedrock surfaces tell the direction and velocity of past water flow, and changes in passage cross section often indicate where tributary passages joined or where distributary passages carried water away from a given passage. Reconstruction of past configurations is confounded by bedrock collapse or breakdown and by sediment fill, either of which can obscure a cave passage. Use of paleohydrological clues and study of maps has led to new discoveries in this heavily explored area.

Modern karst hydrology of the Mammoth Cave area delineated by Jim Quinlan and Joe Ray, and more recently by Joe Ray and Jim Currens, is another useful exploration tool. River Styx and Echo River springs are connected at high flow, but are separate at low flow. An experiment under low flow conditions indicates an air-filled space between River Styx Spring and the sump of the same stream within the cave. The distance between these two points is roughly 2000 feet, and the ancestral Echo River appears to have followed approximately the same route at a higher level, so there is great potential for new discovery. A portion of a passage called Carlos Way, being explored by Charles Fox of CRF, has potential for gaining access into these currently unknown passages.