Jamaican Caving Notes

Sheep Pen Cave

May 9, 2005 - 11:00-11:30 EST

District: Windsor

Parish: Trelawny

WGS84 L/L: 18 21 17.4; 77 39 06.6

JAD69: 180995 E, 189106 N

JAD2001: 681106 E, 689395 N

Altitude: 100m WGS84

Accuracy: +/- 20m horizontal; +/- 15m vertical

Type: Shelter cave

Accessibility: Walk-in

Depth: 0

Length: 10m

Explorers: Anthony - 1920

Survey: N/A

JU Ref: Text - pg 330; Map - none

Entrance size: Overhang only

Entrance aspect: 50 deg true

Vegetation in general locale: Bush, farm

Vegetation at entrance: Bush

Rock type: White limestone

Bedding: Poor

Jointing: Moderate

Speleothems: Stals

Palaeo resources: Bone breccia

Archaeo resources: None

Hydrology: Dry

Siltation: N/A

Sink: N/A

Rising: N/A

Stream passage with surface activity: N/A

Stream passage without surface activity: N/A

Dark zone: 0%.

Climate: Warm, dry.

Bats: None

Bat guano: N/A

Guano mining: N/A

Guano condition: N/A

Eleutherodactylus cundalli: None

Neoditomyia farri: None

Amblypygids: None

Periplaneta americana: None

Cave crickets: None

Sesarma: None

Other species: None. This isn't an actual cave, just an overhang. It has no dark zone.

Visitation: None

Speleothem damage: None

Graffiti: None

Garbage: None

Ownership: Private

Protection: None

Vulnerability: Low. The site has virtually no visitation. Land-use in the area has not changed in some time. There is no immediate threat to any palaeo resources that are still extant.

This is one of Anthony's palaeo sites, and is across the road, on the south side, from Contra Sheep Pen Hole. Like Contra Pen, there is no actual cave, just an overhang. Because these two sites are very similar in nature, I will quote extensively from the notes for Contra Pen.

"Contra Sheep Pen Hole is an overhang, rather than a cave, that is located about 400 metres to the west of the bridge in Windsor. It sits low in a hill a very short distance to the north of the road. The significance of the site is in a palaeontological context, as bone breccia has been found here, as well as at Sheep Pen Cave situated immediately across the road.

There wasn't much work required to investigate this site, and accordingly I had reserved it for a "day off", during the second PiP expedition, when I would be on my own.

My visit to both this site, and Sheep Pen Cave across the road consisted mostly of getting GPS positions for what seemed to be the central part of the overhang. Palaeo work had been done here by Dr Donald McFarlane, in 1993, and I would not interfere with extant breccia, merely note the site as part of the project.

There are a number of other similar, but unnamed, locations in Windsor district that have the same potential for investigations of extinct Quaternary vertebrates as Contra Sheep Pen Hole, but this happens to be one with a designation in Jamaica Underground. That is the primary reason why we included it in the Parks in Peril Project visits. It is not a speleological site, as such.

It might be of value for someone to carry out a systematic search for other shelters and overhangs in the district that have good bone breccia, and then obtain accurate GPS positions and make this information available to interested parties, but in a speleo sense, as with Contra Sheep Pen, and Sheep Pen, these sites will not be caves.

The actual location of the site, and the corresponding position, are rather vague, because there is no particular entrance to mark, just a stretch of overhanging rock. Nevertheless, by using the position listed above, and looking along the cliff, one will easily locate everything that might be of interest.

Biologically, there is only the regular terrestrial flora and fauna here, because there is no dark zone. E. cundalli might occasionally use the cracks and fissures, but none were noted during my visit."