From the Depths of Caves to the Film World

How does a single person combine his two favorite hobbies of caving and videography into one successful marketing career?

Dave Socky of the Blue Ridge Southwest Film Office is a talented professional who knows how. He began caving seriously in 1974 and started filming his caving expeditions in 1986. Luckily for Socky, he was able to find a way to unite his two favorite passions in the world and to do it successfully. Not only does he explore and survey caves; he documents them and manages his own video production unit with help from his wife.

Socky works out of Roanoke and each year helps the Blue Ridge Southwest Film Office host its annual film festival. He also is an active member in the International Speleological Society Convention. The videos he has created are both fascinating and educational. Some of his videos are often sold at particular cave gift shops, such as The Grand Caverns, and some of them have been sold for use to mega-companies, such as National Geographic and The Weather Channel.

Socky sat down recently with Planet Blacksburg to share his life experiences and techniques in film making and cave exploring.

Oregon cave yields evidence of the earliest Americans yet

Human DNA dated to 14,300 years ago

Fossilized excrement found in an Oregon cave has given scientists the clearest evidence to date that humans roamed the New World at least 1,000 years earlier than previously believed.



The prehistoric feces, deposited in a cave some 14,300 years ago, contain DNA from the forebears of modern-day Native Americans, according to the research.

The discovery reported yesterday by the journal Science added fresh weight to emerging theories that Stone Age people from Asia somehow bypassed ice sheets sealing off North America before 11,000 BC.

Nearly all scholars agree that humans were present by then, but until recently few archeologists accepted that an earlier arrival was even possible because of the formidable ice barriers. So the Oregon discovery and work at other sites may help solve one of archeology's most enduring mysteries - how and when did humans reach the Americas?

The new timeline comes from 14 pieces of fossilized excrement, called coprolites, found within the Paisley Caves complex by University of Oregon archeologist Dennis L. Jenkins and painstakingly analyzed by genetic anthropologists in Denmark.

Tiny Bug Found In Grand Canyon Region Cave Suggests Big Biodiversity

This tiny arthropod, measuring only 1.3 mm,
has hardened forewings similar to that of the outer
hardwing cover of beetles.
Credit: Ed Mockford, Illinois State University

The discovery of a new genus of a tiny booklouse from a northern Arizona cave may lead to further protection for cave ecosystems.

J. Judson Wynne, a Northern Arizona University doctoral student and cave research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Southwest Biological Science Center, and Kyle Voyles, a cave researcher from Parashant National Monument, recently discovered a new genus of psocopteran (booklouse) from a cave on the western edge of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument.

This discovery represents only the third known living genera in the Family Sphaeropsocopsis. There are two other genera, which are known from fossils in amber dating back to early Cretaceous Period around 125 million years ago. Whether this finding represents a relict species researchers cannot yet say. It will require further investigation to discover if this is a species that has survived while other related ones have become extinct.

Jupiter Scouts, leader rescue young caver in Georgia

Scoutmaster Jeff Vorpagel, left, with Troop 173 Boy Scouts
who went caving last weekend but ended up saving a teen who
got stuck 50 feet down in one of the caves. From left, they
are Ricky Berlin, Chance Vorpagel and Robert Fox. Jeff Vorpagel,
Fox and Chance Vorpagel helped with the rescue and brought
the teen to the surface.

It was the end of a long weekend, crawling through caves as part of a Florida cavers field trip in north Florida and south Georgia.

Several Jupiter Boy Scouts from Troop 173 of Jupiter First Methodist Church, including Robert Fox, 13, a candidate for Eagle Scout, and Chance Vorpagel, 15, were accompanied by Chance’s dad, Jeff, an Assistant Scoutmaster and instructor in climbing and caving.

Daylight was fading Sunday evening as the Jupiter group prepared to depart for home from Cairo, Ga., when the father of a teen unassociated with the Jupiter Scouts came running up.

His teenage son was unable to make his final ascent up from a ledge 50 feet below the entrance of a waterfall cave.

“The teen was exhausted and becoming delirious, and he couldn’t help himself at all, ” said Calvin David Fox on Wednesday, as he related Robert Fox's and Chance Vorpagel's actions to help rescue a teen they did not know from injury.

“Ironically, Robert had just finished a Red Cross class in wilderness first aid, and he told me that because of the class he realized that if they didn’t get the kid out of the cave he could have hypothermia and go into shock,” the elder Fox said.

Partially Mummified Corpse Found In Glenwood Canyon Cave

A partially mummified body has been discovered in a cave west of No Name, Colo.

According to a newspaper report, the body is believed to be that of a transient.

The body was found by a man and his two sons inside the cave, east of Glenwood Springs, on Saturday afternoon.

The deputy coroner of Garfield County told the Glenwood Springs Independent that the hands of the corpse were starting to mummify, indicating that death had occurred weeks before the trio made the grisly discovery.

Thomas Walton was conducting an autopsy to determine and the cause and time of death for the unidentified man.

For years, cavers trying to visit Cave of the Clouds have been confronted by a wild-eyed transient who sometimes threw rocks at them as they climbed the walls of Glenwood Canyon to access the cave.

The man told cavers that he considered the cave his home and he stayed there year round.

A spokeswoman for the Garfield County Sheriff's Office said the man found dead had been living in the cave.

The man and his sons planned to revisit the cave to erect a cross in his memory.

Source: The Denver Channel