3 men grew pot in cave, D.A. says

Authorities say operation could grow 100 pounds every 8 weeks

Investigators from the 15th Judicial District Drug Task Force found a mother lode of marijuana in the unlikeliest of places--a cave.

Beneath a stylish A-frame home on Dixon Springs Road in eastern Trousdale County, three men allegedly set up a sophisticated operation to grow as much as 100 pounds of marijuana every eight weeks.

"It's pretty amazing what they had under there--water for irrigation, special lighting, devices to keep the humidity just right. These guys were professionals. They knew what they were doing," said District
Attorney General Tommy Thompson of Hartsville.

"They could grow in 60 days what it would take four and a half months to
grow outside."

Arrested on Wednesday were Brian Gibson and Greg Compton, while a third man, Fred Strunk, was arrested near Gainesville, Fla. All three are in jail, with Gibson and Compton being held in the Trousdale County Jail. Bail was set for Gibson and Compton at $5 million, while Strunk's was set at $15 million, Thompson said. Local authorities were in Florida yesterday to return Strunk to Tennessee.

Book: A Wonderful Underground. By Kyung Sik Woo

Caves: A Wonderful Underground. Kyung Sik Woo
(English translation by Kyeong Park and Eunmi Chang).
Hollym, Elizabeth, New Jersey; 2005.
ISBN 1-56591-221-7. 6 by 9 inches, 230 pages, softbound. $29.50.

This is a fairly nice little introduction to caves from Korea.

The majority of the book is an elementary description of cave geology and biology at about, I'd say, a ninth-grade level. There is more about lava tubes than is usual in such a book, perhaps because they are relatively prominent among the caves of Korea. Except in a forty-page section devoted specifically to the caves of Korea, the coverage is international.

There are color photographs on most pages; a number of the photos of lava tubes are by Dave Bunnell. There is a good conservation message at the end, where the author bemoans vandalism in Korea's caves.

Unfortunately, there are some of things that are not quite right. The Clansman is not in Carlsbad Cavern. The town and cave in Kentucky are not named Horseshoe Cave. Mammoth Cave was not mined for saltpeter during the Revolutionary War.

The book can be bought on Amazon.

Urine-Powered Battery

In their quest to develop a smaller, cheaper battery for medical test kits - like those used to detect diabetes by analyzing a person's urine - scientists in Singapore had a eureka moment of sorts when they realized that the very urine being tested could also serve as a power source.

In the September issue of The Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, Ki Bang Lee described how he and his team of researchers created "the first urine-activated paper battery" by soaking a piece of paper in a solution of copper chloride, sandwiching it between strips of magnesium and copper and then laminating the paper battery between two sheets of plastic. In this setup, the magnesium layer serves as the battery's anode (the negatively charged terminal) and the copper chloride as the cathode (the positively charged terminal). An electricity-producing chemical reaction takes place when a drop of urine, which contains many electrically charged atoms, is introduced to the paper through a small opening in the plastic.

The scientists' largest prototype battery generated a maximum of roughly 1.5 volts, the equivalent of an AA battery, and sustained an average of about 1 volt for about 90 minutes. Lee explains that its uses could extend to any device that consumes a small amount of electricity. "For instance," he says, "we could integrate a small disposable cellphone and our battery on a plastic card, for use in an emergency. And we are continuing to develop batteries that could power regular cellphones, MP3 players and laptop computers." While Lee emphasizes that urine is the biofluid of choice (since "everybody produces large amounts of it"), he notes that other bodily fluids - blood, tears, semen and saliva - will work in a pinch.

Source: NY Times

Magazine: Expedition Volume 47, Number 3 Winter 2005 Special Issue: Caves

Cover: Photo by Graeme Barker

Features: Caves as Sacred Places on the Tibetan Plateau (Mark Aldenderfer) Burial Rituals of Prehistoric Forager-Farmers in Borneo--The Neolithic Cemeteries of Niah Cave, Sarawak (Graeme Barker) What Did Ice Age People Do in the Deep Caves? (Jean Clottes) Archaeological Caving in Croatia--The Illyrian Rituals of Nakovana Cave (Timothy Kaiser and Staso Forenbaher) The Heart of Creation, the Heart of Darkness--Sacred Caves in Mesoamerica (Holley Moyes and James E. Brady) The World of Ancient Ancestors--Australian Aboriginal Caves and Other Realms within Rock (Paul S. C. Tacon)

Book review: Cumberland Caverns

Cumberland Caverns. Larry E. Matthews. Greyhound Press, Cloverdale, Indiana; 2005. ISBN 978-0-9663547-2-0. 8.5 by 11 inches, 188 pages, softbound. $18.

Cumberland Caverns was known as Higgenbotham and Henshaw caves during most of its history, before it was turned into a Tennessee show cave by Roy Davis and Tank Gorin in 1955 and 1956. Similar in style and content to Matthews's recent book on Dunbar Cave, this book is a nice account of the history of Cumberland Caverns, which began in the pioneer days and continued, as far as significant events go, up to the completion of the current map in 1978, at 27.6 miles. Among the appendixes are a nice gazateer and a chronological summary. Roughly half the entries in the chronology, if one ignores trivial things like forty-four entries for the annual Cumberland Caverns christmas parties, are from the nineteenth century. There is also a poem that was apparently inspired by Higgenbotham Cave in 1880. It has over four hundred lines of the good old-fashioned sort that actually rhyme and scan.

This is a slightly revised and updated second edition of a book that was originally published by the NSS in 1988. It has been reformatted to a larger page size, and the photographs, many of which are new to this edition, are much better reproduced. (A number of photographs in the first edition could not be reprinted, though, so that edition may still be of interest to serious historians.) There are many nicely drafted maps, in the style of the 1970s, of parts of the cave, but the small scale required for even parts of such a long cave would not have permitted much floor detail anyway.

Cumberland Caverns was one of the most exciting cave exploration stories during the 1950s and 1960s, and cavers as well as speleo-historians will enjoy this book.

Ancient limestone cave suffers damage in Inner Mongolia

An ancient limestone cave took shape about 10,000 years ago in the Helan Mountain of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has suffered devastation due to illegal excavation and robbery, the local mountain administration said Monday.

The cave, containing innumerable stalactites of various shapes, is located in the Helan Mountain, Alashan League, northwest of Inner Mongolia. It was discovered by forest rangers in July this year.

Unfortunately, the potential tourist site has become a victim of robbers, who risk harsh punishment by stealing those stalactites

Experts said it was the biggest limestone cave in the Helan Mountain which has a history of 10,000 years and has a high value for archaeological studies.

But according to the forest police, the cave has been devalued due to damage caused by robbers, some of whom have been arrested.

Local administrators has installed an anti-theft door at the cave's entrance in September this year to prevent the cave from being further robbed.

Source: Xinhua

Children's book review: In the Dark Cave

In the Dark Cave. Richard Watson, illustrated by Dean Norman. Star Bright Books, New York; 2005. ISBN 1-59572-038-3. 8.5 by 11 inches, 40 pages, softbound. $5.95.

A cute little poem by Red Watson about a cave cricket, a cave rat, and a cave bat. Each stanza faces a cartoon by Dean Norman. The book could easily have been made much smaller without losing anything, but still the price is about as low as any for a book these days. Would be a nice gift for a smallchild.

Cave Diving Museum

The newly instituted Cave Diving Museum and Library needs your help.

An informational CD is being produced to raise money for the Museum and Library and we need more old photos and short video clips. We hope to include on this CD: photos significant to the history of cave diving equipment development influential persons current equipment inventory some historic maps, etc. 

So if you have anything you would like to donate to be included on this CD , now is the time. All pics / video, must be donated by the original owners. Digital format is best. If hard copy photos are to be donated, they can be scanned and sent back to the owner. 

Please email Brian Williams: bmwcaves@msn.com or Cindy Butler; butler_cynthia@bellsouth.net with a brief description of photos or video you may want to donate, or even suggestions and we will provide further information. 

 Or if you would like to send something snail mail, just email a request for the address. We are currently working on fund raising, equipment and photo donations. A building has been located in High Springs to house the museum and we are working out the logistics of the set up and inventory 

 Thanks, Brian Williams , Board of directors; Cave Diving Museum and Library NSS 43870

New Compass Release

COMPASS is a cave mapping software package designed to edit, process, analyze and view cave survey data using an IBM PC compatible computer. The programs in the system allow you to enter cave data, revise the data, generate statistics on the cave, close loops, view plots from various angles on the screen and finally, print finished quality plots on almost any of dot matrix, laser, ink jet printer and a variety of line plotters.

COMPASS has hundreds of powerful features, including a configurable survey editor, high speed real-time 3D passage wall modeling, GIS and data base compatibility, sophisticated loop closure and blunder detection. COMPASS is extremely fast capable of animating of caves in excess of 150 miles in length. It is also very easy to use, with built-in wizards and tools that make it easy for novice users to manage and work with large cave systems. COMPASS will run on any modern version of Windows. COMPASS is constantly being refined to add new features and take advantage of the latest technologies.

This is a major new release, with more than 45 changes and improvements. Here are the highlights of
the changes:

1. TRUE 3D ROSE DIAGRAMS.
CaveX now has the ability to generate 3D Rose-Depth diagrams where each petal is a 3D object that represents both angle and depth at the same time. These are full 3D solid models that can panned, rotated and zoomed allowing them to be viewed from any angle. 3D Rose Diagrams are much more useful than ordinary Rose Diagrams because they allow you to see passage trends that only exist at certain depths in the cave.

2. LOCKING IMAGES TO THE CAVE.
The Viewer now supports the option of locking bitmap images to the cave. This is useful for tying topographic maps, aerial photographs and other maps or drawings to the cave. Once the image has been registered, the image can expand, contract, shift and rotate synchronously with cave. There is also the option of editing, trimming, and resizing images using filtering and over-sampling to minimize artifacts. Finally, you can adjust the contrast, brightness and gamma of the image to improve its clarity and readability.

NSS Science Award

Dear Fellow Cavers/Cave Scientists: 

I am on the NSS Awards Committee and in my role as the new chair of the Science Award subcommittee, I want to strongly encourage you to submit a nomination for next year’s NSS Science Award. I’m sure you can think of some good scientists in the various cave/karst/pseudokarst disciplines who deserve the recognition. We are looking for people who have made significant contributions to the sciences, but who are also still very active. Close association of the scientist with NSS is not mandatory, but preferable. The nominee must be an NSS member for at least the past two years. Strong preference will be given to nominees who have not received the NSS Honorary Member or Outstanding Service awards (if you’re not sure, check next to the person’s name in your NSS Members Manual or I can let you know). 

The previous Science Award recipients are: 

1994 William B. White (geoscience) 

1995 John Holsinger (biology) 

1996 Arthur N. Palmer (geoscience) 

1997 Derek Ford (geoscience) 

1998 Thomas Poulson (biology) 

1999 Patty Jo Watson (archeology) 

2000 John Mylroie (geoscience) 

2001 James R. Reddell (biology) 

2002 Carol A. Hill (mineralogy) 

2003 Paolo Forti (geoscience) 

2004 E. Calvin Alexander, Jr. (geoscience) 

2005 Francis G. Howarth (biology) 

Your nomination letter should include details of the nominee’s contribution to cave science. Please do not assume that “everyone” knows your nominee and your nominee’s merits. Many members of the Awards Committee and the NSS Board of Governors are not scientists and will need this information to make a sound decision. If you do not send supporting information, I guarantee your nominee will not be selected. A resume attached to your nomination letter is very useful (and can often be obtained by collusion with the nominee’s significant other). 

Please do not let your nominee know that they have been nominated – not knowing that you were not selected is much nicer than knowing. Letters from other people supporting your nomination are helpful, especially if they provide additional useful insights into the nominee’s contributions. Last year, we had some excellent nominees. If your nominee was not selected and you still support that nomination, let me know and I’ll recycle the nomination materials; feel free to send updated material if you wish. Some excellent nominees did not rank highly in previous years because little or no supporting information was provided. Those nominations will not be recycled unless you provide some pertinent details about the scientist. The nominations can be sent to me by mail, e-mail, fax, or as attached e-mail documents. 

The deadline is November 15th. If you have general questions about the nomination procedure, contact Awards Committee Chairman Bill Tozer at WTozer@aol.com. Thanks, Diana Diana Northup Biology Department MSC03 20202 1 University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001 +1-505-277-5232 (voice) +1-505-277-6318 (fax) dnorthup@unm.edu

Bulgarian Speleologists Trapped in World's Deepest Cave

Three Bulgarian speleologists and their partners from the Ukrainian-Bulgarian expedition Krubera 2005 have been trapped in the world's deepest cave - Krubera.

Due to the torrential rains continuing for a fourth day in a row the members of the expedition are trapped in their camps in the cave located in West Caucasus, Bulgaria's Speleology Federation announced.

Bulgarians Teodor Kisimov and Konstantin Stoilov are with their Ukrainian colleagues at a camp located at a depth of 1,790m.

Svetlomir Stanchev, the third Bulgarian in the expedition, is at a camp at a depth of 1,200m along with Russian speleologists.

It is still not clear when the speleologists will continue with their work, but the rain is expected to go on for another 4 to 5 days.

The head of the Bulgarian Speleology Federation Alexey Zhabov was cited as saying that the teams are fully equipped and have enough provisions for at least ten days.

The two base camps in Krubera are linked through a wire telephone and they keep in touch.

The Krubera 2005 expedition is a scientific one. The Bulgarian participants have to study the vertical and the horizontal galleries. The expedition is expected to end October 28.

Source: Novinite

Certificate of Merit Award

The deadlines for the NSS award nominations for 2006 are just a month away on November 15.

Certificates of Merit Award
Up to three Certificates of Merit Awards are awarded each year to individuals, jointly to no more than three individuals, or to organizations for specific accomplishments in cave exploration, study, or conservation which further the goals of the NSS. If you know a deserving person or organization, don't delay nominating them; emphasis is placed on more recent accomplishment. Document their work in a short letter and submit the nomination to Gary Moss by November 15 at:

gmosskvr@nova.org
or
Gary Moss
7713 Shreve Road
Falls Church, Virginia 22043-3315


Additional information on the NSS awards may be found at:
http://www.caves.org/nss-business/bog/description.html

1rst Central American Speleology Congress has been postponed

The 1rst Central American Speleology Congress has been postponed to April 8th to 12th 2006 due to exceptional climate events that have affected the region during this hurricane season especially Honduras, Nicaragua, San Salvador, Guatemala and northwest Costa Rica which have been hit with lots of tragedies.

The invitation is still open for cavers all around the world that want to participate in this first Congress. Updated information will be posted at: http://www.talgua2006.blogspot.com

Cave For Sale: Heiser Mystery Well

Howard Brown the owner of Heiser Mystery Well is selling his house and 33 acres which included the entrance to Heiser Mystery Well. 

The house is about 10 years old log house and is located in Harrison Country, Indiana, about 5 miles north of Depauw. The house is 3,600 square feet and has a basement. It is a 4 bedroom house with 3-1/2 baths. 

When I was surveying the cave I saw the house being built and it is a great house. It is Howard's retirement home. The cave is one of the best multi-drop caves in Indiana. It has the deepest drop (depending upon how people measures this drop and Gory Hole) at 137 feet.

It also has a 120' drop and a 103' drop plus numerous short drops. About a mile of cave passage has been mapped. The property is on a top of a large sandstone ridge. 

He is asking $420,000 for the house and 33 acres, which is about the going price form land that is within commuting distance of Louisville, KY. 

Howard's e-mail address is HOHOBrown@yahoo.com . It would be a great place for a caver or caver friendly person to own.

Lew Bicking Award Nomination

Each year the NSS recognizes a caver who has demonstrated a long-term, solid commitment to the exploration and documentation of a cave or group of caves - this would be the Lew Bicking Award which is presented each year at the NSS Awards Banquet at the annual convention.

If you know of someone who deserves this recognition, please consider nominating them for this award. 

Letter length doesn't have to be much more than two pages and should outline the accomplishments of the nominee and why you believe that they are deserving of this award. . Letters of support from other cavers is also helpful. Support letters can be a page long - and they should also summarize the reason why the author believes the nominee is deserving and also could include a short summary of accomplishments. A one-line email stating "so-and-so deserves the award" is not an acceptable letter of support. Most of the time the awards committee does not know award nominees personally, so good letters of nomination and support are critical.

Another important qualification for this award is that nominee should be an NSS member for the past two years.

Nomination deadline for the award is November 15th, 2005. Nominations can be sent to the Bicking award subchair either via email or in hardcopy. If anyone has any questions please don't hesitate to contact me.

Pat Kambesis
Bicking Award Committee Subchair
Dept. of Geography & Geology
Western Kentucky University
Bowling Green, KY 42101
pnkambesis@juno.com
270-745-5201

1rst Central American Congress of Speleology

The Anthros Costa Rica Grotto will be sponsoring the 1rst Central American Congress of Speleology.

We will be in charge of the vertical course that is part of the Congress, and also several short presentations will be made by our Grotto related to responsible caving, safety, rescue, Central American cave database, etc. 

You are all invited; Honduras is a very nice place and good for caving, the same as Costa Rica and other countries in Central America. 

www.anthros.org

In Memoriam: Ransom Turner

Ransom Turner, former Cave Specialist at Lincoln National Forest/Guadalupe Ranger District died of injuries from a seizure and fall into a ravine on his ranch in La Luz, New Mexico on Friday, Sept 16th.

Anyone who caved in the Guads over the past twenty or so years will remember Ransom as the quiet but dedicated cave manager that he was for the Forest Service. He took his job as steward of the caves very seriously and was disappointed that he did not achieve more for them than he was capable of doing before his medical retirement in 2004. 

He reflected the true spirit of caving in the Guads and will be sorely missed.

His funeral on September 24 in Alamogordo was attended by virtually the entire Southwest Region of the NSS, a testament to his legacy. He is survived by his wife, Jacki Turner, his sister Michelle Whipple and mother Jane Murray Turner. An obituary will be published in the upcoming NSS News.

New Method For Dating Ancient Earthquakes Through Cave Evidence Developed By Israeli Researchers

Photo in the stalactite cave near Beit Shemesh, Israel,
shows a collapsed ceiling, evidence of an ancient
destructive earthquake. Note the stalactites that
were growing prior to the collapse, as well
as the stalagmites on top of the ceiling that
began to grow only after the collapse.
(Photo by Elisa Kagan)

A new method for dating destructive past earthquakes, based on evidence remaining in caves has been developed by scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Geological Survey of Israel.

Using this method, they discovered for the first time evidence of earthquakes that can be documented some distance from the Syrian-African rift that runs from Syria through Lebanon, Israel and Jordan and down into Africa. This rift caused great shifts in the topography of the region in prehistoric times.

An article on this subject was published this month in the journal Geology. The article is based on work carried out by graduate student Elisa J. Kagan of the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University and on a report issued by the Geological Survey of Israel, a government research body.

Stalactite caves retain a record of environmental conditions, including climate and the seepage of water through cracks in the earth. The researchers examined the stalactite cave near Beit Shemesh and another nearby cave, which are located about 40 kilometers west of the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea itself is part of the Syrian-African rift.

Experts to look into Meghalaya cave row

Experts from the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), Nagpur arrived in the city today to investigate the controversy over the destruction of India?s longest cave, Krem Kotsati in Lumshnong, by cement factories.

In answer to a starred question by ruling coalition MLA P.T. Sawkmie, Meghalaya chief minister D.D. Lapang told the Assembly today that representatives of the IBM were in Shillong for an inquiry. He added that last month his government had requested the IMB to depute some experts to conduct the inquiry.

The chief minister assured that the inquiry would provide ?the most authentic report.?

However, even as Lapang said the IBM would start the inquiry soon, he said his government would prefer the state?s development to saving the caves in Meghalaya. Lapang?s volte face on the caves has come as a surprise to many and invited sharp criticism from the Opposition. A couple of months back Lapang had gone on record saying he would ensure that development was not at the cost of the environment.

Ruling MDA members like Pynshai Manik Syiem said if the caves in Lumshnong were of national importance, then under Article 49 of the Constitution it would be obligatory on the part of the state to protect every such monument.

Earlier, Lapang placed on the floor of the House an inquiry report by the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board. Interestingly, the board?s report mentions that the Cement Manufacturing Company Limited, one of the offending factories, had been categorically asked to use scientific and latest mining technologies and to operate pollution control devices regularly.

In a separate development, the villagers of Lumshnong have written to local MLA Nehlang Lyngdoh and complained about pollution and blockage of water sources by debris from limestone quarries, besides excessive air and noise pollution from blasting operations.

Source: Telegraph India

10,000-year-old Etchings Found In English Cave

An engraving thought to be 10,000 years old has been uncovered in a cave, British researchers said Monday. The series of inscribed crosses -- found on the wall of the Aveline's Hole cave in Somerset, southwest England -- are thought to date from the early Mesolithic period just after the Ice Age.

Source: Orlando Sentinel

Lapang cements save-cave campaign

Caught in a storm over the growth of cement factories in the vicinity of the country?s longest cave system, Meghalaya chief minister D.D. Lapang today committed himself to a ?fact-finding exercise? to fix responsibility for lapses, if any, in sanctioning the plants.

The cement factories at Lumshnong in the Jaintia Hills were sanctioned after the Meghalaya Industrial Policy of 1997 introduced a single-window clearance scheme.

Environmentalists say the 21.56-km-long Kotsati cave, which combines with smaller caves to form a network that stretches for over 35 km, will cease to exist if the cement factories are allowed to go full steam ahead with production.

Lapang admitted the fragile ecology of the area could be imperilled by the cement plants, each of which occupy about 12 hectares of land. ?Yes, we must get to the truth and see that our environment and caves are not destroyed,? he said.

The chief minister said his government would scrutinise all relevant documents pertaining to the cement plants.