The Boils - Part 2: The Further Investigations of Unusual Karst on Spring Creek in Overton County, Tennessee

We returned to the swallets on Spring Creek to investigate further, hoping to find more, and perhaps better document the features we had seen there two weeks before (see this blog post: http://chuck-sutherland.blogspot.com/2015/07/unusual-karst-on-spring-creek-in.html). Things had changed considerably for a few of the swallets, cementing in our minds just how dynamic the karst and streams are of the Spring Creek system.

Lightning Photographed from around White County, Tennessee

Unusual Karst on Spring Creek in Overton and Jackson County, Tennessee

I got to do a little bit of whitewater on Thursday in order to access and document a few unusual features located along Spring Creek in Jackson County, Tennessee.

I was working with Ryan Gardner, a geology student at Tennessee Tech University, and a new caver in the Cookeville community. His senior thesis will be a study of The Boils in Jackson County. The Boils is a fairly unusual feature. It is a river that comes out of the ground under pressure. The water wells up in the center of a large pool and joins the Roaring River after travelling over the surface a few hundred feet. The video I will link to at the end of this message shows some footage of it.

Ryan's goal in his project is to find possible inputs for the system, and to eventually dye trace them. My caver buddy, Steve Anderson will be assisting with the dye work, Dr. Evan Hart at TTU is advising, and I'm assisting in documentation.


Video and stills: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chucksutherland/sets/72157655675127758

Grassy Cove