So I finally made my way out to Republic to explore Panther Valley and the Cave there, which I have known about for a while but just recently went to see. So the "cave" isn't much, just a little rubbish filled drain at the bottom of a karst canyon, but it is the canyon that is impressive. It really is pretty damned cool and it surprises you with how deep and steep it gets. But the most notable feature I found is up on the higher elevation just off the outside edge of the bend of the canyon (the canyon is shaped like a hook) is one of the steepest, deepest, and most vertical sink-holes I've ever come across. The walls are so vertical that at first I thought I was looking at an old open pit mine, but a little examination shows that is not the case.
I'm really bad at judging height looking down from above, but probably...I dunno, 40-50 feet down and maybe 15 feet across, almost strait down into some karst exposures and the sound of trickling water below.
I also think this sink hole is rather new, because I first found out about Panther Valley by reading an old MSU karst geology field trip log from, I think, the early 90s, and it described the rest of the canyon but made no mention of this sink.
Anyway, here it is on googlemaps, very clear in terrain view, and pretty easy to access. 37.116837, -93.443629
Panther Valley Cave and big damned sink hole
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- The Goose Slayer
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Panther Valley Cave and big damned sink hole
"To argue with a man who has renounced reason is like administering medicine to the dead."-Thomas Paine
Re: Panther Valley Cave and big damned sink hole
I've spotted the sinkhole several times but never taken the time to explore it. It's been there since early 2000's.
“An all-out attack on evolutionist thinking is possibly the only real hope our nations have of rescuing themselves from an inevitable social and moral catastrophe.”
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― Ken Ham