Agen Allwedd

[tarquinwj]

a. Agen Allwedd
b. Top of First Scree Slope
c. White beads and fine needles
d. Angular rocks in a large breakdown passage
e. Pictures attached
f. Many piles of spent carbide in the cave, which can easily be mistaken for CCCs. 318015,216135. Approximately 130 metres below surface.

Heading anti-clockwise around the Inner Circle, at the top of the First Scree Slope is a chamber with a passage continuing ahead and a distinctive wall of boulders peeled off on its right. Immediately beyond that peeled wall, on the right side of the passage.

[tarquinwj]

a. Agen Alwedd
b. St. Paul's Passage, at foot of slope from Dome of St Paul's
c. Gold nuggets
d. Angular rocks in an enormous passage
e. Pictures attached
f. 317920,216225. Approximately 150 metres below surface.

[tarquinwj]

Not so sure about this one. It has the look of cryogenic gypsum deposits, sitting on a rock without any crystals directly above, but it also sits in a very active streamway which floods regularly. Suggests that CCCs would have been washed off over the millennia. Also has a broken straw lying on the same rock without any calcite growths above, so deposition may have occurred in some other manner rather than CCCs in melting ice. Eg. could have been washed there when the water level was higher (before the lip of the sump dropped to leave Turkey Pool).

a. Agen Allwedd
b. Between Phreatic Passage and Turkey Pool in Turkey Streamway
c. Crystals and crystal powder
d. Angular rocks in an active streamway
e. Pictures attached
f. 317720,215685. Approximately 171 metres below surface.

[tarquinwj]

Also not sure about this one. Sits in a the same very active streamway which floods regularly. Could simply be debris that got washed into place.

a. Agen Allwedd
b. Turkey Junction
c. Lumpy growth
d. Angular rocks in an active streamway
e. Pictures attached
f. 317989,215457. Approximately 178 metres below surface.

[tarquinwj]

And also not sure about this one. Sits in another very active streamway which floods regularly, but has not flooded to this level for several decades at least. Could simply be debris that got washed into place. The area is covered in spent carbide that has been discarded, and is therefore much more likely to be debris created by cavers. However, it looks different, some small beads (could be gravel washed by the stream), and some lumpy growths like at Turkey Junction, wedged down between rocks.

a. Agen Allwedd
b. Main Stream Passage and Bastard Passage junction
c. Bead and lumpy growths
d. Angular rocks in an active streamway
e. Pictures attached
f. Surrounded by spent carbide and selenite speckling. 318356,215433. Approximately 171 metres below surface.

[tarquinwj]

a. Agen Allwedd
b. Priory Road, starting 25 metres after Ribbed Vault
c. White beads and breadcrumbs, with tidemarks of brown staining
d. Fluffy/bobbly mud in a phreatic passage with areas of sand and breakdown
e. Pictures attached
f. Surrounded by snowdrifts of gypsum crystals looking like they share identical morphology. 319230,214140. Approximately 204 metres below surface. Very deep for permafrost effects. Must have been an extremely cold or prolonged ice age.

[tarquinwj]

a. Agen Allwedd
b. Priory Road, Glevum Hall
c. White beads and powder of various grain sizes
d. Fluffy/bobbly mud in one area and angular boulders in another, in a large, phreatic chamber
e. Pictures attached
f. 319580,214050. Approximately 180 metres below surface.

[tarquinwj]

a. Agen Allwedd
b. Isles Inlet, 2/3 of the way to Trafalgar Passage
c. Aggregations of tiny white beads
d. Fluffy/bobbly mud and angular rocks in a small, phreatic passage
e. Pictures attached
f. Where the passage passes very close to Glevum Hall in Priory Road. 319580,214090. Approximately 182 metres below surface.

[tarquinwj]

a. Agen Allwedd
b. Crystal Gallery, top of the boulder beside the entrance hole
c. Tiny white beads of various diameters
d. Beneath damp mud on angular rocks making up a choke in a fairly large, phreatic passage
e. Pictures attached
f. 318183,215301. Approximately 177 metres below surface.

Another odd case, like Craig a Ffynnon. The deposit lies beneath damp mud on top of a boulder. Amazingly, the mud may actually have been responsible for preserving the deposit, and protecting it from being washed away. Presumably, the mud was formed in a slow flowing pool of water, held back by the nearby choke. The subsequent cutting of the streamway beneath the passage would have washed the deposit away, but it was kept in place by the mud.

In the same area are some very large selenite crystals. These have been observed in many other places in proximity to CCCs, such as in Gothic Passage near Priory Road, and Epocalypse Way in Daren Cilau (in fact, this is why I started searching for CCCs beneath the mud in the first place). These crystals have also been found in Draenen within fluffy mud. It suggests that there may be some link between the CCCs and the selenite crystals, and perhaps the crystals are also cryogenic in origin.