Lost River - Karst Information Portal

2007 NSS Convention Guidebook
Indiana University. A new series of dye traces
associated with the Indiana Department of
Transportation and some regional groundwater
quality studies have resulted in many more
since 1992 as discussed below. (KS).
The Lost River topographic watershed
above the True Rise of Lost River can be
divided into three parts on the basis of tracing
the normal and low-flow subterranean drainage
(Figure 30). The northeastern part includes
about 40.7 square miles in the Crawford
Upland and Mitchell Plain that is tributary to
the rise at Orangeville. The central portion is
mostly within the Mitchell Plain and covers
about 107.8 square miles of drainage, including
the upper part of the Lost River, which is
tributary to the True Rise of Lost River. This
portion includes the major part of the dry bed
and sinkhole plain area commonly associated
with Lost River. The remaining part is the karst
valley of the South Fork of Stamper Creek
that is tributary to Lick Creek, an area of 14.5
square miles. Flood flows within the entire
drainage basin fill the subterranean conduits
and overflow into surface flood channels or dry
beds, ultimately to discharge into Lost River.
Modern flood flows essentially reoccupy the late
Tertiary or early Pleistocene surface routes that
were regularly used prior to the development
of karst features and caverns during early and
middle Pleistocene time. Surficial stream
meanders are incised into both alluvium and
bedrock, but demonstrate that the Lost River
has in the past acted like a regular river during
flood events, and continues to do so today.
The northern boundary of the Lost River
drainage basin with the Mitchell Plain is drawn
(Figure 40) along a low topographic divide.
Drainage to the north is to the East Fork White
River through such caverns as Blue Spring Cave
(Palmer, 1968), the three river caves in Cave
River Valley, and the Donaldson-Twin Caves
which drain the sinks of Mosquito Creek
(Brune (1949) and Powell (1961) pp 60–61,
63, and 73).
Malott (1952) suggested that the drainage
of the dismembered portions of Beaver
Creek, including areas to the northwest of
150
Wadsworth Hollow, were tributary to the
rise at Orangeville through caverns such as
Beaver Creek Swallowhole Cave and Salts
Cave. However, the fluorescein test has proven
that the area drains instead to Sulphur Creek,
more or less down the dip of the local bedrock
rather than along the strike (1, Figure 40). The
subterranean gradient from the swallowhole to
the spring on Sulphur Creek is 27 feet per mile,
which is about the same as the local dip of the
bedrock.
Show Farm Cave (2, Figure 40) trends
along strike-oriented joints southward towards
the rise at Orangeville (Powell, 1961, p 102).
The dye test showed that the drainage resurges
at Orangeville. Flood water follows surface
channels of Dry Branch to Orangeville.
Topographic maps show that the area’s
surface drainage is toward Orangeville, but
the divide between subterranean drainage that
is tributary to the rise at Orangeville and that
water which is tributary to the rise of Lost
River, is not discernable on the surface. Two
tests were made to trace subterranean drainage
at Orleans that Malott (1952) suggested was
tributary to the rise at Orangeville. Fluorescein
was dumped into a sinking stream, Flood
Creek, on the west side of the town of Orleans,
and into the sewage plant (3 and 4, Figure 40)
that discharges its wastes into a sinkhole on the
south side of town. Both were detected at the
rise at Orangeville.
Drainage of the upper part of Lost River (5,
Figure 40) was traced to the True Rise of Lost
River about one mile south of Orangeville (C,
Figure 40). The dye test was detected visually in
the rise at Wesley Chapel Gulf, confirming the
studies of Malott (1932). The stream includes
drainage from Carter Creek, and the North
and South Forks of Lost River. Near the sink
where the dye was injected, Lost River is joined
by an upland dry bed that carries overflow flood
waters from the South Fork of Stamper Creek
and joins Stamper Creek and several other
small streams that drain westward off the thick
clay-covered portion of the Mitchell Plain.
The Sinks of Stamper Creek (6, Figure 40)
were traced to the True Rise of Lost River, not