Diana, You bring up an excellent point regarding damage to a cave and one which has often bothered me. For example, I helped remap parts of Turner Avenue in the Flint Ridge portion of Mammoth Cave, Kentucky in the late 1980's. This was an almost pristine and incredible trunk passage discovered in the late 50's or early 60's. The passage is mostly 10 feet high and 20-30 foot wide, sand covered passage, that runs for thousands of feet. The original explorers left a very narrow trail in the very fine sediments in this passage. However, folks considered the survey in the 60's not up to the standard in the 80's so the passage was resurveyed. (Turner Avenue is well described in the book The Longest Cave by Roger Brucker.) The trip leader for the resurvey wanted the distance to the walls physically measured at each station. This required walking out across the undisturbed sediments which I wouldn't do. However, there were others on the trip that were willing to do this. I tried to reason with them but they were on a mission to survey the cave and were not going to be stopped, come damage to the sediments or formations or not (common sense did not prevail). Now, I could estimate the distance from the survey station to the walls probably with an accuracy of a few feet. Using the scale at which the cave map was to be drawn, this uncertainty was the width of the pen used to draw the map. We forever disturbed these sediments and in my opinion, greatly distracted from the aesthetics of the cave. In addition, sediments (wall crusts, etc) have just as much geologic and aesthetic value and importance as cave formations. Now there are laser range finders that can very accurately measure that distance without damaging the sediment.
This weekend, on a survey trip here in Texas, there were four or five survey teams in the cave. The cave has an established trail from the entrance to one of the major junctions in the cave. Over the last 5 plus years, great pains have been taken to keep new cavers on what I call the trade route to minimize damage to formations and crusts. Probably close to 500 people have visited this section of the cave with very minimal damage and disturbance. However, some of the survey teams had no problems with getting off the well established trail and climbing over formations rather than using the trade route on the way to their survey objectives. I don't think the trip leaders were trying to damage the cave, they just weren't properly educated in Leave No Trace ethics and on the proper conservation ethics and practices for the cave. Last Friday, I was doing a site evaluation of a ranch when we crawled into a small cave entrance with the ranch owner's son. After about 100 meters of crawling, we popped up into a fine truck passage and carefully walked down about 500 meters of very well decorated virgin cave. We stopped in passage 20 feet high and 10 feet wide with a large white formation across the passage. I convinced the owner's son to wait until we can come back with some clean clothes and equipment so we don't soil the formation. (we'll see if that happens). So, while we complain about non-cavers doing damage to caves, organized cavers can have just as big or bigger impact. Before we start casting stones, I've broken my fair share of formations and disturbed my fair share of sediments and then some. Maybe old age and wisdom are starting to get the upper hand on my youth and enthusiasm (about time). Geary -----Original Message----- From: Diana Tomchick [mailto:diana.tomch...@utsouthwestern.edu] Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 12:10 PM To: Mark Minton Cc: <Texascavers@texascavers.com> Subject: Re: [Texascavers] How long is Punkin Cave? One might also consider that it is not necessary to traverse every possible way to get through a breakdown, simply from an environmental point of view. Does it make sense from a cave conservation point of view to leave elephant tracks everywhere possible, just to add some additional survey length? Not in my mind. 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: diana.tomch...@utsouthwestern.edu 214-645-6383 (phone) 214-645-6353 (fax) On Jan 11, 2012, at 10:06 AM, Mark Minton wrote: > I agree that it doesn't matter what configuration cave passages make. > Stacked levels, parallel passages, tight groups of passages, etc. are all > still passages as long as they are in solid rock. But how can you rationally > count multiple routes through breakdown as separate passage? There is > basically one (maybe more) larger space filled with rocks that one can go > around and through in different ways. But it's still just one passage. One > wouldn't count different routes through a thicket of formations as different > passages. What if there were a single passage with a large block of > breakdown mostly filling it. Say there is just enough room to squeeze around > either side and over the top. Who would count that as three separate routes? > Breakdown-filled passages or rooms are the same thing on a larger scale. Of > course sometimes the breakdown is so extensive that it is not readily > apparent where the walls really are, in which case it gets tough to define > what is a passage and what isn't. The map usually reveals the basic outline, > though. > > Mark > > At 08:52 AM 1/11/2012, Jim Kennedy wrote: >> 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:carl.kun...@suddenlink.net] >> 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 > > Please reply to mmin...@caver.net > Permanent email address is mmin...@illinoisalumni.org > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com > For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com > ________________________________ UT Southwestern Medical Center The future of medicine, today. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
