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Geology News
Caves and Karst Current Events

I really like to see publications like this placed on the web where citizens have free access to valuable information prepared by government agencies. This publication includes chapters on floods, earthquakes, problem soils, mass movements, subsidence and earth fissures, radon, karst, abandon mines, volcanic hazards and radon. Every state should have a publication like this on their website.

Jewel Cave in Western Australia has been open to the public for almost 50 years has it’s reflective beauty threatened by a declining water table. Other caves in the area have experienced similar water table declines.

SCUBA Divers in Florida set a new world’s record for the longest underwater swim through cave passages. They entered Turner Sink, swam through 7 miles of passages and exited at Wakulla Springs State Park. This was the first underwater swim between the two cave systems.

The caves recently discovered on Mars by NASA’s Mars orbiter are thought to have been produced by volcanic activity or by asteroid impacts. This article is based upon presentations made at the recent GSA meeting in Denver.

Three University of Texas students were fortunately rescued after being in a cave for about 30 hours. It seems like lots of people learn about the locations of caves without learning how to get in touch with a local caving group who might be able to help them learn about safety, equipment and consideration of nature.

The Underground Texas Grotto offers to help people in the Austin area learn about caving. And, the National Speleological Society has a webpage devoted to helping anyone connect with a local caving club. Check them out!

USGS Image

Cave extremeophiles (microbes that live in very difficult environments) have been the object of Hazel Barton’s research for a long time. Barton, a professor of microbiology at Northern Kentucky University has visited more than 1000 caves in the United States, Britain, Greenland, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Venezuela, Greece, and New Zealand to study these organisms.

Kevin Lange © iStockphoto.com

A petroglyph is an image that has been carved into a rock. People have been making them for thousands of years. This photographic collection of petroglyphs includes rock art from Arizona, British Columbia, California, Hawaii, India, Namibia, New Mexico, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Utah, Virgin Islands and Washington.

NASA Image

A cave skylight is an hole the roof of a cave that extends up to the surface. NASA’s Mars orbiter Odyssey has imaged features that appear to be cave skylights on the slope of a Martian volcano. These openings are about 100 to 250 meters across and based upon day time / night time temperature differences measured with an infrared camera, scientists conclude that they are openings in the planet surface.

Two people in Cornwall, UK ventured into a shoreline cave at Trenance Point near Mawgan Porth. While in the cave the tide came in and blocked their exit. Searchers went looking for the pair when they failed to return home. They were found hours later and assisted from the cave. Fortunately they survived the experience but one needed hospital treatment for hypothermia.

J. A. Soriano Photo

Scientists from the University of Texas at Austin are trying to better understand how the cenotes of Mexico formed and how they evolve over time. At the same time scientists from Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburgh are pushing the envelope in robotic mapping and navigation.

Electrical Resistivity at Poza Seca

Marc Airhart sends his third field report from Mexico. He explains how some sinkholes have slowly closed, sealing an underground lake below that might contain forms of life that are capable of living without sunlight or oxygen. These living communities have been isolated for thousands of years and may have evolved along paths different than their current relatives that have continued living at the surface.

Skylight at Caverna Cuarteles

Marc Airhart sends his second field report from Mexico. The team went on a field trip to Caverna Cuarteles, a large dry cave with interesting formations and insects. In this report he explains how many of the caves in Mexico are thought to have formed “from the bottom up” by rising volcanic waters. This is in contrast to waters moving “from the top down.” - which is the typical method of cave formation.

Marc Airhart and DEPTHX

Marc Airhart sends his first field report from El Zacatón Cenote, Mexico. There a team of scientists are exploring the world’s deepest water-filled sinkhole. Today the DEPTHX robot made the first ever map of the bottom of the El Zacatón Cenote using its sonar sensors.

Stone Aerospace Iimage

Next week researchers in Mexico will be exploring El Zacatón, the world’s deepest water-filled sinkhole using DEPTHX, the world’s only cave-diving robot. Marc Airhart, science writer at the Jackson School of Geosciences of the University of Texas at Austin, will be sending updates that will be posted right here on the Geology.com News page. Other scientists participating in this project are from Carnegie Mellon University, Colorado School of Mines, Southwest Research Institute and Stone Aerospace.

Illinois Map

Conifer needles nearly 315 million years old, ancient scorpion parts and well preserved spores of lycopods were found in a cave discovered by faculty and students on a University of Illinois at Chicago field trip. I don’t know which is more surprising… the discovery of North America’s oldest conifer or the discovery of a new cave just two hours outside of Chicago?