Master of Science, University of Akron, 2007, Geology

Hellhole is an extensive (32 kilometer) cave system developed within Germany Valley (Pendleton County, West Virginia) on the flank of the Wills Mountain Anticline. The area can be described as a mature karst aquifer on the transitional margin of the Appalachian Plateau and Valley and Ridge physiographic provinces. Hellhole is the most extensive and deepest (158 meters) of several mapped caves in the area (others include Memorial Day Cave and Schoolhouse Cave). The upper bounding lithology is the McGlone Limestone. The cave penetrates through the Big Valley Formation and in to the New Market Limestone, a high purity unit that is mined locally. Faulting and folding are prominently exposed in several passages, but did not affect passage development in a noticeable way. The entrance sinkhole opens in to a large room, however, the morphology of the room suggests that the room formed the entrance by the intersection of passages followed by a vertical shaft intersecting from the surface. Passage orientation and strike of the bedrock are nearly identical (N25°E). Lower passages are generally down dip from upper (older) passages. Cave sediment and paleomagnetic analysis reveals that the minimum age of sediments analyzed are 1.070 million years old. Three hundred measurements of wall scallops show that paleowaters in the Western section flowed southwest (1.1 cubic meters per second). Paleoflow from the Southern portion of the cave flowed northward (0.94 meters cubic meters per second), and flow in the Northern section flowed southward (1.0 cubic meters per second). Most passages are 50 to 100 meters below the present land surface. Most of the cave appears to have formed under phreatic conditions, but the presence of thick clastic sediments in some locations attests to vadose invasion.

Committee: Ira Sasowsky (Advisor) Subjects: Geology