Monday,
April 13, 2015
6:00 - 7:30 pm
Pellissippi
State Technical Community College
10915 Hardin Valley Road, Knoxville
J.L. Goins Administration Building, Cafeteria Annex
APRIL PRESENTATION
Structural
Geology, Hydrogeology, and Evolution of Gap Cave
Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, TN/VA/KY
By
Bill Wilder
Pro2Serve
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Abstract
Volunteers from the Cave Research Foundation (CRF) in cooperation with the National Park Service have been surveying and mapping Gap Cave since 2003. The detailed cave maps produced in AutoCAD™ provide a foundation for mapping and evaluating structural features inherited from the Alleghenian orogeny (i.e. - bedding planes, faults, folds, slickensided shear fractures, and joints), and often dramatically displayed in 3D across ceilings and walls of the cave. The maps also provide a framework for determining the evolution of the cave passages over geologic time. This talk will review the CRF work to date, the hydrogeology of the cave system, the regional and local stratigraphic and structural setting, and field methods and preliminary findings from studying, mapping, and photographing structural features such as the Cudjo Cave Fault and other remarkable structural features exposed in the cave.
Biography
Bill Wilder received a BS in geology from the University of Memphis and a MS in geology from Northern Arizona University. Mr. Wilders MS thesis involved study of an alluvial aquifer providing drinking water for a small community in the Hopi Buttes on the Navajo Indian Reservation. After graduation, he worked in the oil industry for 5 years before moving to Oak Ridge where he has worked in the environmental field as a hydrogeologist and project manager for the past 29 years. His intermittent work on the geology of Gap Cave as a CRF volunteer has been pursued as a hobby and combines his interests in caving, karst hydrology, and structural geology.
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