Tonight's Bexar Grotto meeting is a must see event, featuring the renown George Veni. His talks always attract a crowd, so be sure to get there early.
Caving Where We Shouldn't: Mount Emory Cave, Big Bend National Park, Texas By George Veni No cave should have been there, and certainly no significant cave. The rock is rhyolite, dense, hard, and igneous-not known as a cave-forming lithology. But the release of stresses within the highest peak of Big Bend National Park fractured the rock, creating a relatively complex tectonic cave. Graffiti sets the remote cave's earliest exploration to 1859. It was known to bat biologists in the 1930s, its roost home to the now-endangered Mexican long-nosed bat, one of only two known roosts in the US. In 2002, the detailed exploration and survey of the cave began, along with a geological study and investigation of its invertebrate biology. The effort was expected to wrap-up during that one trip, but each trip kept finding more to explore. In 2006, the project went on a 9-year hiatus as the park decided whether and how to allow access because of White-nose Syndrome. Returning in 2016, celebrating the National Park Service's centennial, the exploration trend reversed when the promising remaining leads ended quickly. The less promising leads ended too, closing the survey with 325 m of hard-earned passages and the 16th deepest cave in Texas at 85.8 m. Sincere appreciation is extended to the NSS for supporting this project through the Sara Corrie Memorial Fund. Meeting starts promptly at 7pm at the Chester's Hamburgers at Loop 410 and New Braunfels Ave. Chester's Hamburgers<https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chester's+Hamburgers/@29.5156039,-98.4608043,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x865cf5344fe6c86d:0xce985a5eb6597329!8m2!3d29.5156039!4d-98.4586156> 1006 NE Loop 410<https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chester's+Hamburgers/@29.5156039,-98.4608043,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x865cf5344fe6c86d:0xce985a5eb6597329!8m2!3d29.5156039!4d-98.4586156> San Antonio, TX 78209<https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chester's+Hamburgers/@29.5156039,-98.4608043,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x865cf5344fe6c86d:0xce985a5eb6597329!8m2!3d29.5156039!4d-98.4586156> Bennett Lee Programs Vice-Chair Bexar Grotto
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