Andy, There are many caves on the former El Max Ranch. The stratigraphy of the area needs a closer look. To the east at Honey Creek we see a well-defined and distinctive 9-m thick biostrome (a fossil reef bed) in which Honey Creek Cave is formed. That biostrome unit isn't exposed in the El Max/CWAN area. Those caves are stratigraphically higher in a part of the lower member of the Glen Rose that clearly forms abundant caves there, but relatively few and smaller caves to the east. Maybe this is simply a bias created by the properties cavers had had permission to explore, or maybe there is something going on geologically creating a true difference in cave development.
The USGS has conducted detailed geologic mapping north of Bexar County. They recently completed some nice work in Comal County. I don't recall if they told me they would be mapping in Kendall County, which would help answer these questions, or if they just hoped for funding to map that county. Geary might know. George (Sent from my mobile phone) ******************** George Veni, PhD Executive Director, National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI) and President, International Union of Speleology (UIS) NCKRI address (primary) 400-1 Cascades Avenue Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220 USA Office: +575-887-5517 Mobile: +210-863-5919 Fax: +575-887-5523 gv...@nckri.org www.nckri.org UIS address Titov trg 2 Postojna, 6230 Slovenia -------- Original message -------- From: grub...@centurytel.net Date: 8/17/19 19:56 (GMT-07:00) To: texascavers <texascavers@texascavers.com> Subject: [Texascavers] El Max ranch El Max limestone; Geology question Does anyone remember the caves on the El Max ranch, Kendall county ? Does anyone remember anything about the El Max limestone ? Way back in the 60s cavers went to caves there. Bill Russell gave a talk, maybe wrote some articles in the Texas Caver at the time about the geology of that area. He suggested using the name El Max limestone for a very cavernous section of the lower Glen Rose limestone that was prominently exposed on the El Max ranch. These would be caves near the Guadalupe river ( I think) same sort of geologic setting as Cave-with out a name, Spring Creek, Alzafar water cave. I remember talking to William about this back in the 70s when we were looking for cave salamanders and Kendall county was one of our favorite places to go. I also sort of remember seeing something in a old TC or TSA convention notes. Looking up the El Max ranch it was 7200 acres and had Guadalupe river frontage. Part of it is now the Cordierra Ranch subdivision.
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