texascavers Digest 11 Jan 2012 15:23:46 -0000 Issue 1468
Topics (messages 19283 through 19295):
Exploring the underground caves of Rio Secreto in Mexico
19283 by: germanyj.aol.com
19284 by: Stefan Creaser
19285 by: caverarch
Bat slide show from new field guide
19286 by: Lee H. Skinner
Re: [SandiaGrotto] Bat slide show from new field guide
19287 by: Lee H. Skinner
The bats of South Sudan
19288 by: Diana Tomchick
TSS volunteer night TOMORROW
19289 by: Jim Kennedy
Paging Bob Richards!
19290 by: Mark Alman
How long is Punkin Cave?
19291 by: Carl Kunath
19292 by: Mark Minton
19293 by: Jim Kennedy
19294 by: Nancy Weaver
Texas caver volunteer hours
19295 by: Geary Schindel
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--- Begin Message ---
I know - ALL caves are underground - I didn't write the title! I only submit
this because the fotos are pretty...
http://www.gadling.com/2012/01/08/exploring-the-underground-caves-of-rio-secreto-in-mexico/
- julia
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--- Begin Message ---
Nine days into the New Year and someone has to bring up the ages-old "Are all
caves underground" debate... What would David Locklear think? Tsk tsk.
:-)
Stefan
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 11:14 AM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: [Texascavers] Exploring the underground caves of Rio Secreto in Mexico
I know - ALL caves are underground - I didn't write the title! I only submit
this because the fotos are pretty...
http://www.gadling.com/2012/01/08/exploring-the-underground-caves-of-rio-secreto-in-mexico/
- julia
-- IMPORTANT NOTICE: The contents of this email and any attachments are
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--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Oh, I did a canoe paddle-though trip in Belize once! It was cool.
Roger
-----Original Message-----
From: germanyj <[email protected]>
To: Texascavers <[email protected]>; greater_houston_grotto
<[email protected]>
Sent: Mon, Jan 9, 2012 6:14 am
Subject: [Texascavers] Exploring the underground caves of Rio Secreto in Mexico
I know - ALL caves are underground - I didn't write the title! I only submit
this because the fotos are pretty...
http://www.gadling.com/2012/01/08/exploring-the-underground-caves-of-rio-secreto-in-mexico/
- julia
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
The Secret Loves of Bats slide show from the new field guide Bats of the
United States and Canada is at
http://tinyurl.com/7kwbjxb
Really great pictures!
Lee Skinner
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On 1/9/2012 6:27 PM, linda starr wrote:
That should be "The Secret LIVES of Bats;" I was wondering what bats
LOVE One of the authors would make a great grotto speaker - Scott
Altenbach, who is still teaching at UNM.
Linda
"i" is next to "o" on my keyboard. It was just a typo. But I hope bats
love other bats, and I love them.
Lee
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
This month's issue of The Scientist has a short article about Bucknell
University mammologist DedAnn Reeder's work on the bats of the South Sudan. In
addition to identifying new species of bats, she is doing some interesting
experiments regarding their immune systems, which may help in understanding why
bats are known to harbor many infectious diseases (Ebola virus, rabies, WNS).
http://the-scientist.com/2012/01/01/bat-luck/
If you aren't able to access the article, send me an email and I'll forward a
PDF copy to you.
Diana
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Diana R. Tomchick
Professor
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Department of Biochemistry
5323 Harry Hines Blvd.
Rm. ND10.214B
Dallas, TX 75390-8816, U.S.A.
Email: [email protected]
214-645-6383 (phone)
214-645-6353 (fax)
________________________________
UT Southwestern Medical Center
The future of medicine, today.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Cavers, the TSS has its regular monthly work session tomorrow evening
and we could use your help. We recently received a load of files from
George Veni, including a bunch of new cave maps not previously in our
files, and we need to sort, inventory, scan, and file them. We also
have the usual batch of exchange publications, cave files, and so on to
work with. Some of us Directors will be at the TSS office from 5 pm
until about 8:30 or so. If you plan to attend, you need to show up
before 6 so you don't get hassled by the campus gate guards. For those
of you unfamiliar with the Texas Speleological Survey, it is the state
cave archives, curating all information and artifacts on Texas caves,
cavers, and caving. We have (through the graces of the Texas Memorial
Museum) a premium facility on UT's J. J. Pickle Research Campus in
northwest Austin. Directions, and more information about the TSS can be
found on our website at www.txspeleologicalsurvey.org. I hope to see
you there!
Jim "Crash" Kennedy
TSS Office Manager
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
You're the proud winner of a bounced 50th Anniversary TEXAS CAVER!
Send me your new address and I'll get it to you.
Thanks!
Mark
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
How Long is Punkin Cave?
Punkin Cave serves as a wonderful way to get new cavers and potential surveyors
underground to useful purpose. Kudos to those who keep plugging away at this
project.
It has been announced that Punkin Cave, presently at 13,400+ feet, is now the
10th longest cave in Texas and the 369th longest cave in the United Sates,
having surpassed such caves as Kartchner Caverns (Arizona), Adams' Cave, and
Caverns of Sonora in Texas.
It seems to me that this is a classic example of confusing the length of survey
lines applied to a cave with its actual "length."
When caves are reasonably linear and not too wide, a survey line down the down
the "center" of the passage with occasional shots to the side to establish wall
location will give a good idea of the length so long as the side shots are not
counted as length.
The reality is that not all caves are that easy to assign a meaningful length
number.
Consider Grutas de Bustamante. It's a huge, booming passage, often several
hundred feet wide but with little in the way of side passages. There has been
a lot of survey activity in there over the years, most notably the heroic
effort by Jan and Orion Knox. the passage is really too wide to survey by just
moving down the middle. Some survey efforts have gone down one wall, and then
returned along the other. Did the combined length of those survey lines double
the length of the cave?
Consider Endless Cave (New Mexico). It's a complicated maze cave with only a
few traditional linear passages. I couldn't tell you how long it is because
the traditional notion of "length" is nonsense in this situation. When the
survey was completed, it was noted that more than 10,000 feet of survey lines
were required. Another way to look at that is to state that by traveling a
non-repetitious 10,000-foot circuit, one might reasonably claim that they had
"seen" the cave.
The situation at Punkin Cave is even more extreme. Here, there is an irregular
but somewhat pyramidal void mostly filled with cemented breakdown. To date,
nowhere is it possible to be more than a few hundred feet from the surface
datum. To laboriously survey multiple, interconnecting routes through such a
three-dimensional maze and then add the survey lines together for a "length" is
absurd.
The point farthest from the entrance datum is ~350 feet. If the "length" of
the entrance drop is subtracted, the figure is even less. The entire known
cave is contained within a space 460 feet long, 200 feet wide, and 210 feet
high.
How "long" is Punkin Cave? You decide, but please don't ask me to believe its
presently known length is more than 2.5 miles!
===Carl Kunath
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--- Begin Message ---
Very good points, Carl. Other caves that have overstated
lengths are Three Fingers and Lechuguilla. Three Fingers is also
basically a pile of breakdown with lots of ways through it. When we
resurveyed it in the 80s I remember that the plan and profile looked
very similar. Lech contains a lot of boneyard maze as well as
massive breakdown, and it makes no sense to count every line through
those areas as length, although I think they do. Certainly one
cannot logically count perimeter surveys of large rooms or passages
as length. Most survey reduction programs allow one to flag shots so
that they do not count as length, but many people do not use that
feature. In fact, some projects even count resurvey as length, which
is clearly cheating.
I do think that discrete passages in mazes should count as
long as the walls are solid rather than breakdown. Even that gets
complicated, though, because one has to decide when it goes from maze
to boneyard, or when closely spaced passages morph into a large room
with pillars. There will likely never be an acceptable standard that
everyone agrees upon. Caveat emptor.
Mark Minton
At 02:08 AM 1/11/2012, Carl Kunath wrote:
How Long is Punkin Cave?
Punkin Cave serves as a wonderful way to get new cavers and
potential surveyors underground to useful purpose. Kudos to those
who keep plugging away at this project.
It has been announced that Punkin Cave, presently at 13,400+ feet,
is now the 10th longest cave in Texas and the 369th longest cave in
the United Sates, having surpassed such caves as Kartchner Caverns
(Arizona), Adams' Cave, and Caverns of Sonora in Texas.
It seems to me that this is a classic example of confusing the
length of survey lines applied to a cave with its actual "length."
When caves are reasonably linear and not too wide, a survey line
down the down the "center" of the passage with occasional shots to
the side to establish wall location will give a good idea of the
length so long as the side shots are not counted as length.
The reality is that not all caves are that easy to assign a
meaningful length number.
Consider Grutas de Bustamante. It's a huge, booming passage, often
several hundred feet wide but with little in the way of side
passages. There has been a lot of survey activity in there over the
years, most notably the heroic effort by Jan and Orion Knox. the
passage is really too wide to survey by just moving down the
middle. Some survey efforts have gone down one wall, and then
returned along the other. Did the combined length of those survey
lines double the length of the cave?
Consider Endless Cave (New Mexico). It's a complicated maze cave
with only a few traditional linear passages. I couldn't tell you
how long it is because the traditional notion of "length" is
nonsense in this situation. When the survey was completed, it was
noted that more than 10,000 feet of survey lines were
required. Another way to look at that is to state that by traveling
a non-repetitious 10,000-foot circuit, one might reasonably claim
that they had "seen" the cave.
The situation at Punkin Cave is even more extreme. Here, there is
an irregular but somewhat pyramidal void mostly filled with cemented
breakdown. To date, nowhere is it possible to be more than a few
hundred feet from the surface datum. To laboriously survey
multiple, interconnecting routes through such a three-dimensional
maze and then add the survey lines together for a "length" is absurd.
The point farthest from the entrance datum is ~350 feet. If the
"length" of the entrance drop is subtracted, the figure is even
less. The entire known cave is contained within a space 460 feet
long, 200 feet wide, and 210 feet high.
How "long" is Punkin Cave? You decide, but please don't ask me to
believe its presently known length is more than 2.5 miles!
===Carl Kunath
Please reply to [email protected]
Permanent email address is [email protected]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Punkin Cave is currently has just over 4 kilometers of surveyed passage.
There is almost 5 kilometers of total survey, but as Carl rightfully
points out, some of that is room perimeter shots and some is splay
shots, which do not count towards the total passage length. All of the
current 4km is traversable passage length. We are careful not to
confuse survey length with passage length. Note that I explicitly say
passage length. If you consider passage length the length of the cave,
then this is a meaningful number. It doesn't really matter if the
passage is one long straight line or all bunched up into a big ball. If
you have to cover the same distance (crawling, walking, climbing,
swimming, or whatever) to get "see" all the available passage in the
cave, what does it matter whether that passage is horizontal, vertical,
spiral, air or water filled, or whether it is a straight line or a
jumbled mess? And I also disagree about not counting passages through
breakdown. If you can get through it, it is a passage, no matter if the
walls are solutional or the walls are tectonic. If we pursue that bias,
then suddenly entire caves such as Enchanted Rock and Mount Emory
suddenly are no longer caves!
Jim Kennedy
Punkin Cave Survey Coordinator
From: Carl Kunath [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 1:08 AM
To: TexasCavers
Subject: [Texascavers] How long is Punkin Cave?
How Long is Punkin Cave?
Punkin Cave serves as a wonderful way to get new cavers and potential
surveyors underground to useful purpose. Kudos to those who keep
plugging away at this project.
It has been announced that Punkin Cave, presently at 13,400+ feet, is
now the 10th longest cave in Texas and the 369th longest cave in the
United Sates, having surpassed such caves as Kartchner Caverns
(Arizona), Adams' Cave, and Caverns of Sonora in Texas.
It seems to me that this is a classic example of confusing the length of
survey lines applied to a cave with its actual "length."
When caves are reasonably linear and not too wide, a survey line down
the down the "center" of the passage with occasional shots to the side
to establish wall location will give a good idea of the length so long
as the side shots are not counted as length.
The reality is that not all caves are that easy to assign a meaningful
length number.
Consider Grutas de Bustamante. It's a huge, booming passage, often
several hundred feet wide but with little in the way of side passages.
There has been a lot of survey activity in there over the years, most
notably the heroic effort by Jan and Orion Knox. the passage is really
too wide to survey by just moving down the middle. Some survey efforts
have gone down one wall, and then returned along the other. Did the
combined length of those survey lines double the length of the cave?
Consider Endless Cave (New Mexico). It's a complicated maze cave with
only a few traditional linear passages. I couldn't tell you how long it
is because the traditional notion of "length" is nonsense in this
situation. When the survey was completed, it was noted that more than
10,000 feet of survey lines were required. Another way to look at that
is to state that by traveling a non-repetitious 10,000-foot circuit, one
might reasonably claim that they had "seen" the cave.
The situation at Punkin Cave is even more extreme. Here, there is an
irregular but somewhat pyramidal void mostly filled with cemented
breakdown. To date, nowhere is it possible to be more than a few
hundred feet from the surface datum. To laboriously survey multiple,
interconnecting routes through such a three-dimensional maze and then
add the survey lines together for a "length" is absurd.
The point farthest from the entrance datum is ~350 feet. If the
"length" of the entrance drop is subtracted, the figure is even less.
The entire known cave is contained within a space 460 feet long, 200
feet wide, and 210 feet high.
How "long" is Punkin Cave? You decide, but please don't ask me to
believe its presently known length is more than 2.5 miles!
===Carl Kunath
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
there is an obvious and common sense answer to this question which is
rarely if ever applied. If asked about the length of ones back yard
I seriously doubt most people would include every traversible foot.
Cavers might tho.
Nancy
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Forwarded message from Scott Fee.
Scott is trying to assemble volunteer data for the Combined Federal Campaign
for donations. If you have any data you can send Scott, I'm sure he would be
appreciated. Note that he doesn't have anything from Texas. However, projects
at Government Canyon, Longhorn, Kickipoo, City of San Antonio and other sites
would certainly qualify.
Geary
By: Scott Fee (Birmingham, Alabama)
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
So far, I only have information from 7 states!! I need this information by
Wednesday night. Can you help?
I have information on Alabama, California, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky,
Tennessee, and West Virginia.
The NSS needs your input. Each year the NSS must file an application with the
Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) in order to qualify to be listed in the CFC
donation database. The hardest part of the application is to document the
nationwide NSS Conservation activities. Please take just two or three minutes
and send me an email that includes the
following:
1)State the activity took place
2) Closest City or the County
3) 2011 Date (Prefer month, day and year)
4) Brief description. (Only a line or two needed)
Ideally, please include how many volunteers and what you did. Any statistics
like number of bags, hours spent, truckloads of debris, etc. are a welcome
addition. Â That is it! Shouldn't take two minutes to convey where, when,
and what! This will help the NSS Document caver conservation activities
throughout 2011 in the USA!
Geary M. Schindel, P.G.
Chief Technical Officer - Aquifer Science
Edwards Aquifer Authority
1615 N. St. Mary's Street
San Antonio, TX 78215
210.222.2204
[email protected]
[cid:[email protected]]<http://www.facebook.com/edwards.aquifer.education>[cid:[email protected]]<http://www.youtube.com/eaatx>
[cid:[email protected]] <http://www.edwardsaquifer.org/rss.php>
[cid:[email protected]] <http://twitter.com/#!/EdwardsAquifer>
--- End Message ---
