                                 CODE OF VIRGINIA

DEFINITIONS (§ 10.1-1000)

As used in this chapter, unless the context requires a different meaning:
		&#8220;Board&#8221; means the Cave Board.
		&#8220;Cave&#8221; means any naturally occurring void, cavity, recess, or
system of interconnecting passages beneath the surface of the earth or within a
cliff or ledge including natural subsurface water and drainage systems, but not
including any mine, tunnel, aqueduct, or other man-made excavation, which is
large enough to permit a person to enter. The word &#8220;cave&#8221; includes
or is synonymous with cavern, sinkhole, natural pit, grotto, and rock shelter.
		&#8220;Cave life&#8221; means any rare or endangered animal or other life form
which normally occurs in, uses, visits, or inhabits any cave or subterranean
water system.
		&#8220;Commercial cave&#8221; means any cave utilized by the owner for the
purposes of exhibition to the general public as a profit or nonprofit
enterprise, wherein a fee is collected for entry.
		&#8220;Gate&#8221; means any structure or device located to limit or prohibit
access or entry to any cave.
		&#8220;Material&#8221; means all or any part of any archaeological,
paleontological, biological, or historical item including, but not limited to,
any petroglyph, pictograph, basketry, human remains, tool, beads, pottery,
projectile point, remains of historical mining activity or any other occupation
found in any cave.
		&#8220;Owner&#8221; means a person who owns title to land where a cave is
located, including a person who owns title to a leasehold estate in such land,
and including the Commonwealth and any of its agencies, departments, boards,
bureaus, commissions, or authorities, as well as counties, municipalities, and
other political subdivisions of the Commonwealth.
		&#8220;Person&#8221; means any individual, partnership, firm, association,
trust, or corporation or other legal entity.
		&#8220;Sinkhole&#8221; means a closed topographic depression or basin,
generally draining underground, including, but not restricted to, a doline,
uvala, blind valley, or sink.
		&#8220;Speleogen&#8221; means an erosional feature of the cave boundary and
includes or is synonymous with anastomoses, scallops, rills, flutes, spongework,
and pendants.
		&#8220;Speleothem&#8221; means a natural mineral formation or deposit
occurring in a cave. This includes or is synonymous with stalagmite, stalactite,
helectite, shield, anthodite, gypsum flower and needle, angel&#8217;s hair, soda
straw, drapery, bacon, cave pearl, popcorn (coral), rimstone dam, column,
palette, flowstone, et cetera. Speleothems are commonly composed of calcite,
epsomite, gypsum, aragonite, celestite, and other similar minerals.

HISTORY: 1979, c. 252, § 10-150.12; 1988, c. 891.