Karst Features of karst aquifers of the Valley and Ridge, Piedmont, and Blue Ridge province
Choose a feature on the left to read about it and see photos:
Caves Along Creek
Cave along Cedar Creek, Virginia. USGS Hydrologist Bob Hirsch experiences karst terrane first hand while kayaking on Cedar Creek.
He is paddling out of a cave along Cedar Creek, about 20 miles south of Winchester.
Cedar Creek is a tributary of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. (Photo by Mary Cirincione)
Sinkholes
Fluorescent tracer injection into a sinkhole in the Leetown area, WV. Tracer tests were conducted as part of intensive investigations of the hydrogeology, water quality,
and groundwater flow of the karst aquifer in the Hopewell Run Watershed, northern Shenandoah
Valley, near Leetown, West Virginia. (Photo by Mark Kozar)
Sinking Streams
Streamflow tracer test on a tributary to Hopewell Run near Leetown, WV. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientist Malcolm Field conducts this test. It
was conducted to assess potential leakage of stream water to the karst aquifer in the
northern Shenandoah Valley of West Virginia.
(Photo by Carol Boughton)
Conduits
Karst conduit in a borehole, Cumberland County, PA. A still-frame from a video taken from a camera lowered into a borehole in karst terrane.
A conduit appears in this photo as a distinctive void space, which likely transmits large volumes of water through the aquifer rapidly.
(Photo by Randy Conger)
