"CUMBERLAND-STYLE" CAVES: A SUBSET OF LATE TERTIARY BASE-LEVEL CONDUITS

The term "style" as applied to caves is a relative classification relying on shared morphometric characteristics. The name "Cumberland-style" was given in 1992 to a group of caves developed along the western margin of the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. Their distinction from the plateau-margin style was primarily due to geomorphic and geologic occurrence, passage morphology and cross-sectional area, and paleoflow direction and magnitude. The designation "Cumberland-style" was chosen because (at the time) these particular caves comprised the majority of Tennessee's longest surveyed caves in length, and the longest in the state (Cumberland Caverns, Warren County, Tennessee) was of that style. New studies using cosmogenic nuclides link the origin of Cumberland-style caves to a water table controlled by rivers flowing across the Lexington-Highland Rim erosional surface, and abandonment of these caves to Quaternary incision events along the Upper Cumberland River. Cumberland-style caves are now re-defined as a subset of Late Tertiary base-level conduits, which may include caves on other tributaries within the unglaciated Ohio River Basin.