Quote Originally Posted by Jerry View Post
Attachment 11827
A swallet or swallow hole is a generally misused term referring to a karst feature that takes in surface water. They would most properly be called a "sinking stream". A similar feature called an estevelle can go both ways (syphon or spring) depending on hydrostatic conditions. I have attached(I hope) an image of the Alapaha River Sink, which could be called a swallet or properly a sinking stream. The Santa Fe river at O'Leno, Mill Creek (aka Alachua Sink has an associated swallet behind the sink), Rose Creek Swallet, are all karst features that take in surface water. They DO NOT reverse/change flow direction.

Indian and the other examples just listed by others are examples of offset sinks; just like Mill Creek. Mill Creek has a tunnel roughly 200 ft long to the u/s-d/s T. It can reverse.

It isn't semantics. Swallets don't reverse; period.

Jerry
You're trying REAL hard here. A swallet can take on surface water (obviously), it can STOP taking on surface water, and if conditions are right I've seen at least one have a slight springing discharge. You're attempting to apply your knowledge of a few sites universally to all sites.

For cave divers, we're concerned about the possibility of a sudden conditions change. You stated very early on that that can't happen, now you're trying to argue the definition of what is or is not a swallet (according to the dictionary it's just a hold in the ground to which a stream disappears into) and what 'reversed' means. Bottom line is that cave conditions can and do change dramatically depending on rainfall.

Also, lighten up, Francis.