Fofo,
Cheers for producing an interesting compilation! ?My first thought at looking it over is that to convert the figures into 'caves per square kilometer' or some measure like that which takes the size of the country into consideration would be likewise interesting. ?Look at Cuba, for example, with 1/15th the length of surveyed passages currently recorded in the US squeezed into (or out of) that tiny island nation. ?Your data could be used in this manner, for example, to index roughly the relative investment of serious caving effort from country to country. ? The first distribution also looks like it might plot as close to a straight line on a log-log plot. ?I heard many years ago (in the days of punch cards) that such a plot could be obtained, for example, if you similarly plot the size of cities in a country or large state. ?That sort of distribution is called the "Rank/Size Rule." ?It is supposed to be the result of stochastic processes, but back in the early 1980s when I wrote a hopelessly naive article on the cave length distribution for the cave and computing newsleter (Statistical Analysis of Cave Rank/Size Relationships.? National Speleological Society, Computer?Applications Section, Newsletter, No. 15), I couldn't find a definition for that word. ?I suppose I could now, but I'll settle for "chance," as I was told by a real scientist I asked back then. ? Roger Moore GHG -----Original Message----- From: Fofo <gonza...@msu.edu> To: texascavers <texascavers@texascavers.com> Sent: Fri, Sep 18, 2009 5:34 pm Subject: [Texascavers] Countries with the most surveyed underground passages? Hi!? ? A few days ago there was a question in the Spanish language list Tlamaqui about which country had the most surveyed passages in the world, so as a quick estimate I took the list of caves with more than 15,000 m and grouped it by country. Bill Mixon found the information interesting and suggested posting it here too. Here it is.? ? By surveyed length (in meters, only for caves with more than 15,000 m):? ? 3,512,792 U.S.A.? 1,108,194 Spain? 950,217 Mexico? 756,530 Austria? 492,463 Switzerland? 459,558 China? 416,831 Ukraine? 360,890 United Kingdom? 323,901 Malaysia? 310,133 Italy? 239,000 Cuba? 185,890 Brazil? 183,103 Australia? 173,821 Romania? 135,065 Russia? 126,800 Papua New Guinea? 90,200 Moldova/Ukraine? 76,401 New Zealand? 74,134 Slovakia? 70,668 India? 57,000 Turkmenistan? 56,000 Belize? 36,010 Puerto Rico? 34,600 Venezuela? 32,500 Czech Rep.? 24,080 Georgia? 23,916 Hungary/Slovakia? 23,700 Japan? 23,620 Poland? 23,266 France? 21,814 Norway? 21,000 Philippines? 20,718 Canada? 20,570 Slovenia? 18,400 Algeria? 18,400 Morocco? 18,200 Indonesia? 18,100 Madagascar? 18,000 Bulgaria? 16,396 Croatia? 16,000 Belgium? 15,100 Ethiopia? 15,000 Ireland? ? And by number of caves with more than 15,000 m:? ? 76 U.S.A.? 43 France? 28 Spain? 20 Mexico? 18 Austria? 13 China? 11 Italy? 10 United Kingdom? 7 Cuba? 7 Romania? 6 Switzerland? 6 Malaysia? 5 Ukraine? 5 Brazil? 4 Australia? 4 Papua New Guinea? 3 Slovakia? 3 India? 3 Russia? 2 Belize? 2 Puerto Rico? 2 New Zealand? 2 Venezuela? 1 Belgium? 1 Indonesia? 1 Slovenia? 1 Morocco? 1 Algeria? 1 Ethiopia? 1 Ireland? 1 Madagascar? 1 Bulgaria? 1 Croatia? 1 Moldova/Ukraine? 1 Georgia? 1 Hungary/Slovakia? 1 Turkmenistan? 1 Czech Rep.? 1 Japan? 1 Philippines? 1 Canada? 1 Poland? 1 Norway? ? Have a great weekend! I'm off to the mountains.? ? ? - Fofo? ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------? Visit our website: http://texascavers.com? To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com? For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com? ?
