Searching for caves in Ontario
IMG_7433-1, originally uploaded by Mic2006.
As I say, the question is – are there caves beneath. Naturally, I would answer – “Of course there are” and set about digging right away, but I am involved on another dig right now (Stay tuned).
This here is a soil pipe – big enough up top to loose a leg into. The river swirls down several of these and it would appear, at times of real high flow – back up and fill the entire valley, flow out across the field along a gulley and fill another forest stream and flow down several sinks along there.
This backing up thing was to Marcus not so encouraging a sign. He said it suggested possibly a restricted tunnel system or, more hopefully, just entrance blockages. By tests that Marcus conducted on the calcium held in suspension, the temperature and the drop in elevation between the sink and resurgence Marcus further developed a gloomy outlook on the possibility of tunnels.
Firstly the solution content of the water changed from 380 something up top before it sank to 400 at the point of re-surgence. Marcus said that this meant that this was not so unusual a reading at a resurgence fed by a sinking stream. It did not suggest a great deal of solution had taken place while the water was underground. Daryll suggested hopefully that maybe the water was gassing off as Marcus was taking the reading as the liquid flowed out of a talus slope. The temperature changed from 20 degrees down to 15 and there was a drop significant enough to suggest the possibility of a vadose cave. According to Daryl, this is one of the few cases in this type of rock strata where the water flows down-dip.
