Lost River - Karst Information Portal

2007 NSS Convention Guidebook
The Wesley Chapel Gulf (Figure 53) is an 8.3acre
sinkhole with a rim perimeter of 2,700 feet
that has collapsed into the underground Lost
River. The gulf is about 1,000 feet long north
to south and averages about 350 feet wide east
to west. It is oriented generally parallel to the
regional strike of the bedrock. The gulf floor
has an area of 6.1 acres with steep 25- to 95-foot
bedrock walls on the southeast side. Wesley
Chapel Gulf has exclusively formed in the Ste
Genevieve Limestone, but the cave passages lie
in the underlying St. Louis Limestone (Malott,
1932, p 291).
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Figure 53. A topographic map of Wesley Chapel Gulf and portions of the historically known
Lost River Cave passages (Malott, 1931).
There is a hanging valley in the northeast
corner of the gulf which carries surficial
drainage from the outlier to the east. The gulf
must have been a local swallowhole in the past,
but today only minor local surficial drainage
is captured. Examination of the topographic
map (Figures 47, 53, 55, and 56) indicates
that the hanging valley continues west of the
gulf, suggesting that surface drainage was once
predominant, and (more obviously) that the
gulf is younger than the hanging valley. The
hanging valley is an example of subterranean
stream piracy caused by the sinkhole collapse,