Natural Significance : Geology

Lost Cove is split into two parts: the lower cove, which opens into the Crow Creek Valley, and the upper cove, which is the portion being acquired by Sewanee with The Land Trust for Tennessee. The most important part of the lower cove is already protected as a part of the state-owned Carter Natural Area. Principal features of the Carter Natural Area are three entrances (Buggytop, Peter and Lost Cave) to an extensive cave complex.

The topography of Lost and Champion Coves is classic karst, land that is underlaid by soluble rock. Over geological time, water opens drainages that may appear as sinkholes or caves and produce complex patterns of hydrology.

Geology Professor Bran Potter and his students have conducted preliminary studies of the complex hydrology of Lost Cove. They have attempted to trace the flows of underground water using dye studies, but thus far have had limited success due to the complexity of the topography.

“If you’re a geologist, you wonder where all that water is coming from that is issuing from the mouth of Buggytop,” says Potter. “We know there is a place where draining water from the Cove gathers and disappears into the earth against a cliff, almost like a big drain to a gigantic bathtub, and we suspect that is the source of the water at Buggytop.”

The University Record of June 1874 includes a tongue-in-cheek essay in which Lost Cove has been converted into Lost Lake, by the expedient of plugging the natural bathtub. The editor adds a note saying that “Lost Lake was really deemed practicable by Captain Barney, the able engineer of the University, 15 years ago. He made the necessary explorations and estimates for the formation of a lake in Lost Cove, by walling up the tunnel through which Crow Creek finds its exit from the cove. His estimates for the purchase of land, and for the work, reached only $50,000—a trifle for the University in that day.”

Geologists today hasten to add that such a project would be impossible to complete.

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