Abstract:

The Cooleman-Right Cooleman system is an abandoned, nearly horizontal outflow cave of shallow phreatic nature, modified by breakdown. It lies just inside and parallel to a gorge wall of Cave Creek. This relationship, and others like it here, are attributed to a greater water input into the limestone along the lines of dissection of Cooleman Plain rather than to the mechanical effects of slope retreat such as Renault has favoured. This outflow cave has been replaced as the major rising of this karst by the Blue Waterholes a short distance down valley; shallow incision of the valley has accompanied the shift of the rising. This down valley movement does not seem to be explicable by removal of overlying impervious beds in this direction to expose more limestone but by a displacement of the main artery feeding the risings in the course of the deepening of underground karst development as a result of incision. However, this displacement is not more favourable to the emergence of the underground drainage of the Plain as a whole. The downstream shift of the rising therefore remains problematic. Discussion favours interpretation of Cooleman Cave entrance as a secondary breach into the outflow cave previously emerging at Right Cooleman entrance, aided by lateral erosion of the surface stream, but it is recognised that the evidence is far from conclusive.