The NSS Bulletin - ISSN 1090-6924
Volume 56 Number 1: 23-26 - June 1994

A publication of the National Speleological Society

The Anthodites from Skyline Caverns, Virginia: The Type Locality
William B. White

Abstract

Two specimens of anthodite from Skyline Caverns, Warren County, Virginia were structurally and chemically analyzed. Although both had the characteristic acicular morphology of aragonite, one was composed entirely of calcite which had apparently invented from aragonite. The other specimen was entirely aragonite. The aragonite specimen was high in strontium, low in magnesium, the calcite specimen the reverse. The aragonite to calcite inversion is consistent with the trace element geochemistry of these carbonate minerals and also consistent with an early to mid-Pleistocene age for the cave.

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