A Hydrologic Study of the Kane Caves in Wyoming Valerie A. Bennett CE 394K Fall 2000

Motivation The Kane caves are going to be the subject of my graduate research We are interested in the role that bacteria play in a karst system We also hope to determine the source of recharge for the area

Project Goals Build a base map of geographic and flow data for the Big Horn Lake watershed Create a point shapefile of the USGS gage station at Kane Graph streamflow data for one year

Data Sources HUC coverage for Region 10 from the USGS River Reach File 1 coverage from the EPA Information on streamflow for USGS station # obtained from the USGS National Water Information System

Geologic Setting The Kane Caves are located in the Bighorn Basin, approximately 130 km east of Yellowstone National Park They formed in the Little Sheep Mountain Anticline along the Bighorn River

What do bacteria do in a cave? Bacteria form colonies like the mat seen here They oxidize sulfur and make sulfuric acid

Geographic Map

The Big Horn Lake Basin

Streamflow Discharge in the area is important because when discharge is high, the caves become flooded Flooding provides an influx of nutrients for the bacteria After a snowmelt, the cave entrance floods for around two months

Streamflow Graph

Conclusions The Kane Caves of Wyoming formed by sulfuric acid dissolution For my project, I created a watershed base map for the Big Horn Lake Basin from HUC region 10 and made a point shapefile for the gage station (# ) at Kane I plotted discharge for a period of one year for the Kane station

Future Work I am in the process of selecting other gaging stations along the Bighorn River that could be good sites for monitoring discharge I am making a map of other locations in the world where caves are formed by sulfuric acid dissolution

Acknowledgements Philip Bennett, my advisor (UTDoGS) Annette Engel (UTDoGS) provided the photos Funding by NSF LExEN program Thanks to the USGS for providing so much data for the public