GB Cave is a cave between

Charterhouse Charterhouse may refer to: * Charterhouse (monastery), of the Carthusian religious order Charterhouse may also refer to: Places * The Charterhouse, Coventry, a former monastery * Charterhouse School, an English public school in Surrey London ...

and

Shipham Shipham () is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England. It is on the western edge of the Mendip Hills near the A38, approximately south of Bristol. It is in the local government district of Sedgemoor. The parish includes the village of ...

in the limestone of the

Mendip Hills The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the Frome valley in the east, the hills ...

, in

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, England. The cave was first entered on 19 November 1939, after ten months of digging, by the

University of Bristol Spelæological Society The University of Bristol Spelæological Society (UBSS) was founded in 1919 by cavers in the University of Bristol. Among its earliest activities was the archaeological excavation of Aveline's Hole. The club owns a hut, which was formerly a ladi ...

, and was named in recognition of the two members, F. J. Goddard and C. C. Barker, who had done most of the work involved in its discovery. The cave is located within the

Cheddar Complex The Cheddar Complex is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest near Cheddar around the Cheddar Gorge and north east to Charterhouse in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England, notified in 1952. The very large area includes 4 SSSIs former ...

and the 17-acre GB Gruffy nature reserve and is close to

Charterhouse Cave Charterhouse Cave, on the Mendip Hills in Somerset, is the deepest cave in southern England. History Charterhouse Cave was first excavated in 1972. By 1977 the Sidcot School Speleological Society had reached Bat Chamber, although the first m ...

, the deepest cave in the region. Ladder Dig broke through in 1966 to gain access to the extremely well-decorated Bat Passage. The entrance to the cave is kept locked, and access is controlled by the Charterhouse Caving Company.

Description

GB Cave is remarkable for the Gorge, a river-passage up to wide, high and long, which opens into the even larger Main Chamber ( wide, high, long). Together these two form what was thought to be largest known space under the Mendip Hills, – which also contains a detailed description of the cave. until the discovery of "The Frozen Deep" in

Reservoir Hole Reservoir Hole is a cave in Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, southwest England. It contains what is believed to be the largest chamber yet found under the Mendip Hills. The cave was first dug out in 1951 by members of Wessex Cave Club, and further p ...

in 2012. Further into the cave is the Great Chamber, another large space, and a number of other chambers in the cave are well decorated. The trace elements

magnesium Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is a shiny gray metal having a low density, low melting point and high chemical reactivity. Like the other alkaline earth metals (group 2 of the periodic ta ...

strontium Strontium is the chemical element with the symbol Sr and atomic number 38. An alkaline earth metal, strontium is a soft silver-white yellowish metallic element that is highly chemically reactive. The metal forms a dark oxide layer when it is ex ...

and

barium Barium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in group 2 and is a soft, silvery alkaline earth metal. Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element. Th ...

have been found by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is use ...

(LA-ICP-MS) from three

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...

speleothems A speleothem (; ) is a geological formation by mineral deposition (geology), deposits that accumulate over time in natural caves. Speleothems most commonly form in calcareous caves due to carbonate dissolution reactions. They can take a variety ...

taken from the Great Chamber.

References

{{Mendip Hills Caves of the Mendip Hills Limestone caves Cheddar, Somerset

Description

See also

References