chalk solutional caves isle of wight

[987056]

i am currantly on the isle of wight whick is mostly made of chalk with a small band of limestone running east west along the middle. I know that there are fairly long chalk caves else ware in england i am also aware of some collapse features and a verry small spring leading to a very tight sump in the same area is there any chance of any (very small) caves or any other under ground sites other than the needeles old battery lower level?

All in formation whould be use full thanks.

 

[987056]

had look around the central downs area and found a (currantly dry) sink into hard chalk. there are cavaties and it may bew worth digging the water apears to normaly resurge in severl small springs about 500m away.

 

[glyders]

I was just poking around the undercliff near Ventnor a couple of days ago. There are some nice little rift caves.

One doesn't go far but there is a little climb up inside. At the bottom you can see a way on but it would need digging.
The other has obviously been enlarged by hand (smugglers cave?) to make a good through trip in walking passage. You can see the pick marks and a shelf for an oil lamp. Looking up you can see up the rift above the top of the enlarged passage. Aside passage looks natural and is either solutional or has seen lots of people crawling though. I didn't go far as was in normal clothes with tiny headtorch.

 

[Andy Farrant]

The Chalk on the Isle of Wight is weakly karstic. There are 2 stream sinks on the Isle of Wight, both near Arreton where water flows northwards off Lower Cretaceous strata on to the Chalk, but no known caves of any significant extent. There are a few sinkholes and occasional small dissolutional cavities, mostly sediment filled, in some of the Chalk pits. It is highly unlikely that there are any significant human sized caves, not without a lot of digging.
Andy

 

[Les W]

But caves be where you find dig 'em 

 

[Limestone]

Watcombe Bay, IoW :

This picture shows a sea cave entrance, but which would seem to be above the high water mark. A 10 metre long passage leads into a quite extensive and roomy sea cave givng a total of about 115 metres of passage. Is this entrance a remnant of something karstic, or was it just formed by the action of the sea ?

 

[987056]

I was just poking around the undercliff near Ventnor a couple of days ago. There are some nice little rift caves.

One doesn't go far but there is a little climb up inside. At the bottom you can see a way on but it would need digging.
The other has obviously been enlarged by hand (smugglers cave?) to make a good through trip in walking passage. You can see the pick marks and a shelf for an oil lamp. Looking up you can see up the rift above the top of the enlarged passage. Aside passage looks natural and is either solutional or has seen lots of people crawling though. I didn't go far as was in normal clothes with tiny headtorch.

The land in this area moves fairly often and so the are quite a lot of mass movement rifts it might be possible that large cavities have formed between the semi soluble upper green sand and the impermeable galt clay i should defiantly have a look at this.

The Chalk on the Isle of Wight is weakly karstic. There are 2 stream sinks on the Isle of Wight, both near Arreton where water flows northwards off Lower Cretaceous strata on to the Chalk, but no known caves of any significant extent. There are a few sinkholes and occasional small dissolutional cavities, mostly sediment filled, in some of the Chalk pits. It is highly unlikely that there are any significant human sized caves, not without a lot of digging.
Andy

Interesting, are the sinks on private land, do they look at all promising and do you have a grid reference?  i would be interested in digging these if there was access...

Watcombe Bay, IoW :



This picture shows a sea cave entrance, but which would seem to be above the high water mark. A 10 metre long passage leads into a quite extensive and roomy sea cave givng a total of about 115 metres of passage. Is this entrance a remnant of something karstic, or was it just formed by the action of the sea ?

I was in freshwater last week and went to see these but did not get that far as the tide was coming in. although i did see a very nice section of cave which looked completely different to the rest of the sea caves in the area  as it was at a right angle to the other caves and had a slightly solutional look.




I have also been looking at the bembridge limestone on the island (a recent freshwater limestone) but this seams to be far to thin to allow human sized cave development.