17 YEARS OF RESEARCH AND EXPLORATION IN THE OMEGA CAVE SYSTEM: JOINT MANAGEMENT OF VIRGINIA’S LONGEST AND DEEPEST CAVE BY THE CAVE CONSERVANCY OF THE VIRGINIAS AND THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE

Systematic mapping and exploration of the Omega Cave system was initiated in 1996 and has continued on an annual basis since then. At 47 km in length and 385 m in depth, the cave is the longest in VA and the deepest east of the Mississippi River, and is the longest cave partly or entirely beneath U.S. Forest Service property. The upper of two entrances to this cave is owned by the U.S. Forest Service, while the other is on the Powell Mountain Karst Preserve, which is owned by the Cave Conservancy of the Virginias (CCV). Since 2003, access to the upper entrance has been jointly managed by personnel in the Clinch Ranger District and the CCV.

From a research perspective, the Omega Cave system is an ideal site for investigating the function and evolution of cave systems in the Valley and Ridge physiographic province. Initial studies have described the hydrogeologic function of the larger scarp-slope style karst system containing the cave, and developed a speleogenetic model for the system (Schwartz and Orndorff, 2009). Ongoing and recently initiated research includes: 1) quantifying the timing and rates of passage development (speleogenesis) and related mechanical and chemical erosion, 2) periodic sampling to characterize the geochemical and isotopic variability of the different water sources found in the cave, and 3) installing a network of instrumentation to build a continuous hydrologic, geochemical, and environmental dataset that can be used to understand how, why, and when these parameters change in the cave, and how these changes impact related speleogenetic processes and systems, in addition to affecting biological systems and processes.

Plans for future research in the system focus on addressing basic and interdisciplinary questions, and building a collaborative network of researchers that are focused on understanding how the cave system functions and is affected over long and short timescales by external and internal natural processes such as climate variability and biogeochemical cycles. All these objectives are facilitated by the productive collaboration between the CCV and U.S. Forest Service for the management of different parts of this karst system.