Cave Dwelling Nettle Discovered in China

Flowers of a new species from the nettle family known
only from caves, Pilea cavernicola, where it grows in very
low light conditions.

South West China, Myanmar and Northern Vietnam contain one of the oldest exposed outcrops of limestone in the world. Within this area are thousands of caves and gorges. It is only recently that botanists have sought to explore the caves for plants. This exploration is yielding many new species new to science, that are known only from these habitats.

The current study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

Kew botanist and nettle expert Alex Monro says, "When my Chinese colleague Wei Yi-Gang from the Guangxi Institute of Botany first mentioned cave-dwelling plants to me, I thought that he was mis-translating a Chinese word into English. When we stepped into our first cave, Yangzi cave, I was spell-bound. It had an eerie moonscape look to it and all I could see were clumps of plants in the nettle family growing in very dark condition."

The plants do not grow in complete darkness but do grow in extremely low light levels, deep within the entrance caverns of the caves (sometimes, in as little as 0.04% full sunlight). The British and Chinese authors have been collecting plants from the Nettle family in this limestone landscape for several years and have just published a paper describing three new species, one from a cave and another two from deep gorges.

The cave-dwelling nettle species in question, was found growing in two caves in the Guangxi province of China. Of the species discovered in gorges, one is known from an unusual and striking rock mineral formation called petaloid travertine. Petaloid travertine is a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs that over time forms large petals of rock, in this case clinging to the vertical walls of a gorge.

These plants are members of a genus of Nettles known as Pilea, that is believed to have over 700 species Worldwide, up to one third of which may remain undescribed.

Journal Reference:
Alex Monro, Y.G. Wei, C.J. Chen. Three new species of Pilea (Urticaceae) from limestone karst in China. PhytoKeys, 2012; 19 (0): 51 DOI:10.3897/phytokeys.19.3968

Secret caves in Cape York reveal fossilised snake skeletons and link to Dreamtime

Model of a giant snake known as a madstsoiid

Giant fossilised snake skeletons found on Cape York have unearthed new links to the Dreamtime myth of the Rainbow Serpent.

Fragments of the giant prehistoric snakes, known by the scientific term madtsoiids, that once stalked the Earth have been found by cavers and scientists in the secret "fossil gold mines" of the state's deep north.

Dated back to the Pleistocene epoch, between 2 million and 11,700 years ago, the fossils are believed to be akin to a constricting python, a predator that grew up to 7m long and as thick as a telegraph pole.

Experts question if the giant snakes intersected with the arrival of the earliest humans and if the extinct creature is the latest clue into the mystery of the popular Dreaming story of Australian Aborigines.

The Rainbow Serpent is a story of creation, where a creature of immense proportions moulded the barren earth into mountains, rivers and gorges as it moved across the featureless land.

Video: Underground river system of Bramabiau, Farnce

The underground river system of Bramabiau in the Gard region in France, by Victor Ferrer.  Spanish audio, subtitles in French.

Oakman hosts search and rescue training

The local area Georgia Search and Rescue (GSAR) Taskforce 6 recently held emergency training in Oakman to learn new techniques, and to get refreshment on previous training.

Taskforce 6 is a GSAR group that is comprised of seven different counties in the Northwest Georgia region.

“This is the first year we did search and rescue training, and some of these guys have never really been tested on the ability to search and rescue in our area,” Director of Gordon County Emergency Management Agency Richard Cooper said.

The training started at 6 a.m. and lasted until 2 p.m. Some of the training the taskforce went over consisted of tornado situations, locating a GPS spot, finding victims and bringing them from the woods and also extracting someone from a cave using a haul system, according to Cooper.

Cooper said the taskforce has been set up for about five years now and is funded by grants. He also added that the taskforce is comprised of firefighters, and on top of the training received to become a firefighter there also has to be 500 hours of additional training to become part of Taskforce 6.

“This was a big success, and it gave our guys some a wonderful opportunity to explore and get experience with our terrain,” Cooper said. “It was wonderful to see them shine doing the job that they had to do.”

Source: Calhoun Times

2013 WKU/Mammoth Karst Field Studies Program

Here's the course list announcement for 2013:

The Hoffman Environmental Research Institute through its Center for Cave and Karst Studies and in cooperation with the Mammoth Cave International Center for Science and Learning and Western Kentucky University, are pleased to announce the launch of the Summer 2013 Karst Field Studies Program. Courses this summer will include:

• Karst Geology, June 2-8, Dr. Art Palmer
• Karst Geophysics, June 9-15, Dr. Lewis Land
• Cave Photography, June 10-14, Dr. Dave Bunnell
• Karst Hydrology June 17-21, Drs. William White and Nicholas Crawford
• Cave Biology and Ecosystems, June 17-21, Dr. Dave Ashley

Courses may be taken for graduate, undergraduate, or continuing education credit. Courses may also be taken as non-credit workshops.

For more information about the program, courses, how to register, and instructors, please visit www.karstfieldstudies.com. While visiting the website be sure to also check out the 'Scholarships' tab for information about the Nick Crawford Karst Education Scholarship, a competitive award designed to offer financial assistance for attending a course.

If you have any questions please contact the Karst Field Studies Director, Dr. Leslie North, at leslie.north@wku.edu.

Shippensburg university to host 2013 national caving convention

John Boswell, treasurer of the Franklin County Grotto,
crawls through a tight space in Persistence Cave in Williamson.

Some 1,000 cave explorers — “spelunkers” to the uninitiated — from around the world are expected to come to Shippensburg next summer for the 2013 National Speleological Society Convention.

The convention, the first in Pennsylvania in recent history, will be Aug. 4-10 at Shippensburg University. Typically, the society’s conventions attract cavers from across the United States, as well as from Eastern Europe.

Randy Hurst, public relations chairman for the event, said nearly 1,300 people attended the 2012 convention in Lewisburg, W.Va.

“That area has some of the biggest caves in the country,” Hurst said. “They have the same limestone we have in Pennsylvania, but it’s thicker — so the caves can get really huge.”

CSIRO use 3D mapping to explore Koonalda Cave in South Australia

Mapping the Koonalda Cave with the new
technology will preserve its delicate surface.

World-first 3D mapping technology is creating a new wave of cave exploration, giving researchers and the public unprecedented access to sites of global significance.

CSIRO researchers used the new 3D mapping technology to explore the Koonalda Cave in South Australia, near the western border, for the SA Museum earlier this month.

The delicate site in the Nullarbor Regional Reserve, closed to the public, was used as a flint mine by Aboriginal people between about 30,000 and 10,000 years ago.

They left strange markings, called finger flutings, in the soft limestone walls by dragging their hands along established grooves.

Archaeologist Dr Keryn Walshe from the SA Museum says she wants to work out who made the finger flutings - men, women or children - but they are so fragile they crumble at the slightest touch.

"It is really tempting; it is really hard, actually, not to touch this soft surface because it's so inviting," she said.

"It's this beautiful pure white colour, it's like snow. It looks so lovely and soft you just want to touch it to see what it's like, but you mustn't."

Now researchers can analyse the 3D model from the comfort of their laboratory in Adelaide, using computer software or physical reconstructions of the cave created using 3D printers.

3D Laser Mapping Launches Mobile Indoor Mapping System

Zebedee is a hand-held mapping device designed to be used both indoors and for forestry and other outdoor applications where GPS cannot be used. 3D Laser Mapping is licensing the technology from a UK start-up called GeoSLAM, after it was initially developed by Australia's national science agency, CSIRO .

Zebedee arose out of CSIRO's need to map a set of caves. "Nothing motivates researchers more than inconvenience. And carrying a large stick with a motor and a battery and a computer on a trolley and abseiling into a cave system was just not feasible," explained Elliot Duff, an expert in robotics at the Australian agency. This led him and his colleagues to develop a system that uses "human motion - or passive actuation - to drive the motor of the sensor, not a machine."

Zebedee uses the environment to calculate trajectory; the lidar becomes a trajectory sensor, comparing the trajectories of sets of features. The accuracy of the whole system is dependent both on the accuracy of the laser scanner and the feature-richness of the environment (e.g. mapping a long, featureless corridor or room is problematic).

Scan data is currently processed offline via Dropbox. "Our intention in future is to make it online real-time, so maps are actually created, too, whilst you're walking round the environment," said Duff. "That has applications for first responders, emergency services and security."

Video: Cave diving in Roubidoux Spring

Probably the most popular cave dive is in Roubidoux Spring, Waynesville (Mo).

Roubidoux Spring is open to certified cavern/cave divers who must check in and present their cave/cavern certification card to the officials in the 911 Emergency Center prior to diving. The center is located adjacent to the Fire Station on top of the hill off Highway 66 just east of downtown. There is no diving fee or permit required. Be sure to sign out after diving!

More information on the exploration of this cave can be found here.

Karst-O-Rama 2013

July 12-14, 2013

Greater Cincinnati Grotto is “Simply Caving” at Karst-O-Rama for our 21st year at Great Saltpetre Cave Preserve in Mt. Vernon, KY! 

Registration is limited to NSS/Grotto members only with the option to sponsor up to a total of three (3) non-member guests. 

There will be an abundance of cave trips and many family-friendly activities including Kids Corner, climbing contest, photo contest, map contest, survey class, vertical workshop, geology field trip, gear vendors, and more! 

Pre-registration incentives will be offered. 

To learn more, visit our website: http://karstorama.com and like us on Facebook for updates.

Pre-Registration is now open

Therion 5.3.11 released

Therion is a complete package which processes survey data and generates maps or 3D models of caves.

A new version (5.3.11) has been released and is available here.

Therion solves the most annoying problem of cave cartography – how to keep a map of large and complicated cave system always up-to-date. 

Main features include:

Complete maps with all the detail. No additional ink stroke is needed.

• Maps are dynamic, always up-to-date – i.e. they are automatically re-drawn after loop closure, blunder fix, scale or symbol set change
• 3D models are created using 2D maps

It runs on wide variety of platforms: Linux, Windows, Mac OS X. It is completely free, released under the terms of GNU GPL, with source code available. It doesn't require any other commercial software to run.

The latest version includes following additions/bug fixes:

Buddha did not rest in Bhagava cave

There is no proper evidence to confirm that the Bhagava cave is the place where the Buddha rested after placing His footprint on the top of the Sri Pada, Archaeological Director General Senerath Dissanayake said. He further said that, the Bhagava cave is rich in Buddhist history.

There are three epigraphs at the site. Two of them were written by King Nissankamalla. The third one was written in Arabic by Ibn Battuta. Nissankamalla is the king who kept the largest number of epigraphs.

However there is nothing mentioned in these epigraphs that the Bhagava cave was the place where the Buddha rested with monks after placing His footprint on the top of the Sri Pada.

The Director General was addressing a press conference at the Archeological Department yesterday.

Christmas party held 200ft underground in Mendip Hills cave

The Christmas party at Frozen Deep

These potholers really know how to ‘get down’ and party after holding their Christmas bash 200ft underground – in Britain’s largest cave.

The group – called The Tuesday Diggers – decided to hold their annual festive party in a massive cavern they discovered in September.

A gruelling hour-long descent led the five revellers to the Frozen Deep, a 98ft-high, 200ft-long chamber in the Mendip Hills, near Cheddar, Somerset.

The pals lugged Christmas decorations, party hats, food, mulled wine and even a Christmas tree through 150ft of narrow rock passageways to liven up the cave.

Caver Martin Grass said: ‘It was definitely the most interesting Christmas party I have ever been to."

Source: This is Somerset

Researchers find link between bats and treatment of human diseases

Dr Chris Cowled hard at work

The Bat Pack, a team of researchers at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong, conduct a wide range of research into bats and bat borne viruses, and their potential effects on the human population, as part of the effort to safeguard Australia from exotic and emerging pests and diseases.

Their paper, published today in the journal Science, provides an insight into the evolution of the bat’s flight, resistance to viruses, and relatively long life.

The Bat Pack, in collaboration with the Beijing Genome Institute, led a team that sequenced the genomes of two bat species – the Black Flying Fox, an Australian mega bat, and the David’s Myotis, a Chinese micro bat.

Once the genomes were sequenced, they compared them to the genomes of other mammals, including humans, to find where the similarities and differences lay.

Chris Cowled, post-doctoral fellow at AAHL says the research may eventually lead to strategies to treat, or even prevent disease in humans.

Local Cave Rescue Alerted for Doomsday

Concerned French authorities have started to keep an eye on the town of Bugarach, which according to esoterics will be the only place on our planet Earth to survive December 21, 2012, Doomsday, according to a Mayan calendar. 

All access roads are controlled by police and the local cave rescue section is taking measures to prevent accidents from people goint into the large cave systems located inside the mountain.

Source: Le Figaro

More information on why this town may be the only one spare can be found here.

Call for abstracts -- National Cave and Karst Management Symposium

The National Cave and Karst Management Symposium (NCKMS) is now accepting abstracts for its next meeting, which will be held on 4-8 November 2013 at the National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI) in Carlsbad, New Mexico. 

This is the 20th of this internationally attended conference series. 

For details about the conference and to submit an abstract, go to https://sites.google.com/site/nckms2013/home.

New paper on karstic flow conduits

A new paper is published in the current issue of "Speleogenesis and Evolution of karst aquifers":

Boudinet, P. 2012. A statistical model of karstic flow conduits.

Speleogenesis & Evolution of Karst Aquifers, 12: 9-16

A statistical model of karstic flow conduits, based on statistical physics of random walks, is developed. It allows us to compute the mean depth of flow conduits versus the distance from the inlet and versus the dip. It provides results that are in good qualitative agreement with previous results of other authors: the mean depth increases, slowly, with the distance, and it increases, not in a regular fashion, with the dip. The variability of the depth of the conduits, possibly leading to some conduits far from the water table, and the fact that well developed conduits are scarce or not, is linked to the probability of exploitation of the different fractures, the potentially permeable bedding planes, faults and joints in the karstifiable rock. On the basis of this result, we propose that interesting cavities - from the point of view of caving and cave diving - are found only in a small range of those exploitation probabilities. Finally, we emphasize the non-euclidean properties of flow conduits; especially, that many shortest pathways may exist and that a straight line is not usually the shortest pathway that actually develops between inlet and outlet.

To download the full paper, please, follow this link:

http://www.speleogenesis.info/journal/publication.php?id=11251

Brazil Expands Mines to Drive Future, but Cost Is a Treasured Link to Its Past

A speleologist from Vale, the Brazilian mining giant,
in October at a cave in the Carajás Mountains,
where it plans to expand an iron-ore mining complex

Archaeologists must climb tiers of orchid-encrusted rain forest, where jaguars roam and anacondas slither, to arrive at one of the Amazon’s most stunning sights: a series of caves and rock shelters guarding the secrets of human beings who lived here more than 8,000 years ago.

An iron-ore mine in Pará. Scholars say the caves there tell the story of early humans of the Amazon and should be saved.

Almost anywhere else, these caves would be preserved as an invaluable source of knowledge into prehistoric human history. But not in this remote corner of the Amazon, where Vale, the Brazilian mining giant, is pushing forward with the expansion of one of the world’s largest iron-ore mining complexes, a project that will destroy dozens of the caves treasured by scholars.

The caves, and the spectacular mineral wealth in their midst, have presented Brazil with a dilemma. The iron ore from Carajás, exported largely to China where it is used to make steel, is a linchpin of Brazil’s ambitions of reviving a sluggish economy, yet archaeologists and other researchers contend that the emphasis on short-term financial gains imperils an unrivaled window into a nebulous past.

"Christmas in the Cave" ready with 20,000 lights

Friday is the start of "Christmas in the Cave" at Cherokee Caverns. You can spend the evening getting in the Holiday spirit and learn some geology.

Volunteers at Cherokee Caverns near Oak Ridge have spent the last month hanging more than 20,000 Christmas lights and decorations inside the cave.

Families can walk the mile loop inside the cave which stays a balmy 58 degrees year round.

Also, families can take a picture with Santa and, of course, learn about mother nature.

The Director of Cherokee Caverns, Jim Whidby, says, "They can enjoy a wide variety of cave formation, stalagmites, stalactites, androdites. I encourage folks to come out and enjoy the beauty of the cave. It is the most historical cave in Knox County.The only one of 171 caves that was open to the public."

"Christmas in the Cave" runs Friday and Saturday night from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and next Thursday through Sunday. Tickets are $8.

Source: WBIR

Bad News for Bats: Deadly Fungus Persists in Caves

A study just published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology shows that the fungus can survive in soil for months, even years, after the bats have departed.

This is not good news for the bat population, says lead author Jeff Lorch, a research associate in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We have found that caves and mines, which remain cool year-round, can serve as reservoirs for the fungus, so bats entering previously infected sites may contract white-nose syndrome from that environment. This represents an important and adverse transmission route."

"This certainly presents additional challenges," adds David Blehert, a microbiologist at the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, who also led the study. "It's important that we have completed this foundational work that further implicates the environment in the ecology of this infectious disease. We can now collectively move forward to address this problem."

Blind cave fish inspires sensing system for autonomous underwater vehicles

Ever wonder how fish can find their way around so easily in murky water? Well, most of them use something called their lateral line – a row of hair cells down either side of their body that detect changes in water pressure caused by movement, or by water flowing around objects. Now, scientists from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and MIT have copied the lateral lines of the blind cave fish, in a man-made system designed to allow autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to navigate more accurately and efficiently.

Ordinarily, AUVs use cameras, sonar, or an underwater acoustic positioning system. Cameras aren’t much use in murky water, however – and a lot of the world’s water bodies are murky. Sonar and acoustics are better in such situations, but the hardware can be expensive, and taxing on the AUV’s batteries.

The Cave on Wii U uses GamePad for camera and character switching

The Cave will be Double Fine's first foray on a Nintendo system, believe it or not. At a demo event last week, I spoke with Double Fine's Chris Remo and got our first glimpse at The Cave on Wii U.

Above, you can see how the WiiPad plays into the game. It's essentially a glorified character selector and camera controller – by tapping on a character, you'll jump to them; by tapping on a character twice, you can switch the camera focus to them. In The Cave, characters cannot move independently off-screen.

"So other than that, it pretty much plays like all the other versions," Double Fine's Remo told me. "We did work really hard to ensure that visually everything you're seeing is identical to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, so there's no downscaling, there's nothing going on that is not up to par with the other next-gen systems. There's nothing super wacky going on, but it's a completely full-featured version of the game."

The Cave launches on Wii U next year.

Newly Discovered Cave Weta Species Endangered by Coal Mining

If you have seen any of Peter Jackson’s movies, such as this week’s release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, then you have probably noticed the logo for the special effects company Weta Workshop, which works on most of the director’s New Zealand–based projects. The workshop is named after a bunch of endemic New Zealand insects that look, at first glance, like crickets or grasshoppers on steroids. Weta consist of about 70 species of the largest and heaviest flying insects in the world. Some giant weta species — “very cool, prickly little monsters,” as Weta Workshop puts it — weigh in at up to 30 grams and boast bodily lengths of up to 10 centimeters.

A newly discovered member of the group—the Denniston white-faced cave weta—isn’t quite that big or monstrous. In fact, the scientists who found and tentatively named the species (it hasn’t been given an official taxonomic name yet) don’t know how big the species grows, because only juvenile insects were found. But they do know that its only habitat could soon disappear.

Research on stricken bats may help AIDS fight

The remote possibility that an AIDS treatment can arise from the study of white-nose is about the only positive development since the bat disease was first discovered in a cave near Albany, N.Y., in 2008.

Between 5 million and 7 million bats of various species have died from the disease since that year. In Pennsylvania alone, 95 percent of little brown bats have died.

Bats have an ugly reputation as villains in books and movies, but in reality are as important as birds and bees. They pollinate plants, and a single reproductive female consumes her weight in bugs each night. A colony of 150 brown bats can eat enough adult cucumber beetles to prevent the laying of eggs that results in 33 million rootworm larvae in summer, according to a study cited by Bat Conservation International.

Cave holds ancient cemetery

Portal in time: Recent excavations of the Con Moong Cave
in Thanh Hoa Province found evidence of Ice Age people
and an ancient cemetery dating back more than 10,000 years.

Caves in central Thanh Hoa Province have provided soil evidence of climate change from end of the glacier age, plus tools and an ancient cemetery dating back more than 10,000 years.

The finds were part of a year-long research by scientists from the Viet Nam Archaeology Institute and the Novosibirsk Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography.

Announcing the results, the provincial culture department said the objects were from the third excavation this year in Con Moong Cave in Thach Thanh District. They were evidence of the development of civilisations from the Palaeolithic age (2.5 million BC to 10,000 BC) through the Neolithic age (9,000-6,000 BC).

Discoveries show tool-making techniques using pointed stone pieces, to self-sharpening stone tools, and changes in lifestyles from hunting and picking to early farming.

San Actun and dos Ojos cave System - World's 2nd longest cave

During the August 2012 expedition a dry cave connection was made between Sistema Dos Ojo's Don's $100 Cenote entrance and Sistema Sac Actun's (Nohoch Nah Chich) Pet Cemetery entrance. It follows a similar path taken by Kay Walten, Gary Walten, and Dan Lins over a decade ago. 

The following team helped surveying the new connection: Don Arburn, Gill Ediger, Aida Ferreira, Devra Heyer, Carrie Hutchins, Pat Kambesis, Chris Lloyd, Rene Rogers Ohms, Bev Shade, Peter Sprouse (the cartographer), Terri Sprouse, German Yanez, and Jacinto Vela.

The cave system is now the longest underwater cave system known to man, with a total surveyed length of 308,407 m (=308 km) and a depth of 127.6 m, making it at the same time the second longest cave in the world (See Bob Gulden's list of longest caves in the world).

A complete report can be found in the December 2012 edition of the NSS news.

We are also pleased to report a recent underwater connection between Sistema del Mundo Escondido and Sistema Sac Actun by Alex Reato.

Future information on the exploration can be found on the website from the Quintana Roo Speleological Survey.

Tour guide says long-dead explorer haunts Mammoth Cave

William Floyd Collins

Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world. It's a popular tourist destination. It can also be a dark and dangerous place.

Some people say one early explorer is still roaming the cave, even though he died there long ago.

"Sometimes people hear things, feel things or see things they can't explain," said tour guide Colleen Olson.

Olson has been exploring the cave system and collecting stories about it for more than 20 years. "Stories that were passed down," she said. "Stories I heard from other cave guides."

One legend might not be just a story, but a haunting.

William Floyd Collins was known as one of the great cave explorers of his time. "A man who was trapped in a sand cave, a separate cave, back in 1925," according to Olson.

After 14 days underground, Collins died of exposure, thirst and starvation. His body wasn't recovered for another two months. "And then, back in the 1920s and 30sm his body was on display in a section of Mammoth Cave called Crystal Cave," Olson said.

Some people think Collins plays tricks on them in the cave. But guides say Collins has also been known to help prevent them from meeting his same fate. "For example," Olson said, "there's one story that a caver told me that she was caving near part of the cave where Floyd, when he was alive, would go caving, and she tripped and she started to fall, and then she felt somebody grab her and pull her back, and of course she thought it was her caving partner. So she was about to say, ‘Thanks, Richard,' thanking her pal, but he was way on the other side. So then, when she realized it wasn't Richard, she said, ‘Thanks, Floyd.'"

In live, Floyd Collins helped map and discover the longest known cave system in the world. In death, he might still do the same.

Source: Wave3

Potholers warned over Langstroth Pot cave

Potholers are being warned to take extra care when tackling a cave in the Yorkshire Dales which is in a “dangerous” state.

The Hole in the Floor shakehole, one of the entrances to Langstroth Pot, on the fell above Yockenthwaite, has had a collapse due to heavy flooding over the past 12 months.

The issue has been flagged up by Bradford-based White Rose Pothole Club. It advises that “extreme care” should be taken when using the route.

A warning has gone out on the club’s website and the danger is also flagged up on the Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Association website which carries out rescues both on the fells and in the caves of the area.

A spokesman for the White Rose Pothole Club said: “In the past month two slabs of rock have been cleared from below the entrance that were blocking the passage forward. The rock is fractured here and is being undermined by floodwater.

“Anybody using this entrance to Langstroth Pot please take extra care.”

Source: Craven Herald

New Eyeless, Scaleless Cave Fish Discovered in Vietnam

A cave-dwelling fish with no eyes and no scales has been discovered on a tiny island in Vietnam's scenic Ha Long Bay, according to conservation group Fauna & Flora International.

The newly described fish, a type of loach, has been named Draconectes narinosus, which derives from the Greek words for dragon "drakon" and swimmer "nectes," as well as the Latin word "narinosus," which means "who has large nostrils."

Its lack of eyes and scales are actually common adaptations for animals that have evolved in the darkness of deep limestone caverns. Like other cave fish, D. narinosus is limited to a life in freshwater, which means it is likely confined to a system of subterranean caves on Van Gio Island, unable to swim out into the surrounding sea.

French-Swiss cavers reveal more of giant cave system in New Britain

A French-Swiss team of cavers has released photographs and a film from its latest expedition to a huge network of chambers and sinkholes beneath the Nakanai Ranges of West New Britain, in Papua New Guinea.

The film has premiered at a mountaineering film festival in the French city of Grenoble, and photos from the WOWO 2012 expedition will soon be available on the web.

To find out more about this underworld Isabelle Genoux talked to French speleologist and photographer Philip Bence.

The interview can be listened to on Radio Australia.

Cave Structure Tells Tale of 13,000 Winters

Scientists have found a stalagmite in an Oregon cave that tells the story of thousands of winters in the Pacific Northwest.

"Most other ways of estimating past climate, like tree-ring data, only tell us about summers, when plants are growing," Oxford University researcher Vasile Ersek said in a statement. But understanding ancient winters is also important for regions like western North America, where chilly conditions are critical for determining water resources.

For their study, Ersek and his colleagues examined a cave formation called a stalagmite that started forming 13,000 years ago in a cavern in what is now Oregon Caves National Monument. During the region's damp winters, water from the ground seeped through the cave's ceiling and trickled onto the floor, with the drips slowly forming the stalagmite over time.

Skeletons in cave reveal Mediterranean secrets

Location of Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites on the
Ègadi Islands and in NW Sicily.

Genetic and chemical analyses of human skeletal remains reveal origins and food habits of first Sicilians

Skeletal remains in an island cave in Favignana, Italy, reveal that modern humans first settled in Sicily around the time of the last ice age and despite living on Mediterranean islands, ate little seafood. The research is published November 28 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Marcello Mannino and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany.

Genetic analysis of the bones discovered in caves on the Egadi islands provides some of the first mitochondrial DNA data available for early humans from the Mediterranean region, a crucial piece of evidence in ancestry analysis. This analysis reveals the time when modern humans reached these islands. Mannino says, "The definitive peopling of Sicily by modern humans only occurred at the peak of the last ice age, around 19,000 -26,500 years ago, when sea levels were low enough to expose a land bridge between the island and the Italian peninsula".

The authors also analyzed the chemical composition of the human remains and found that these early settlers retained their hunter-gatherer lifestyles, relying on terrestrial animals rather than marine sources for meat. According to the study, despite living on islands during a time when sea level rise was rapid enough to change within a single human lifetime, these early settlers appear to have made little use of the marine resources available to them. The authors conclude, "These findings have crucial implications for studies of the role of seafood in the diet of Mediterranean hunter-gatherers."

Scientific article:
Mannino MA, Catalano G, Talamo S, Mannino G, Di Salvo R, et al. (2012) Origin and Diet of the Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers on the Mediterranean Island of Favignana (E`gadi Islands, Sicily). PLoS ONE 7(11): e49802. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049802

Thermal scans of bat faces warn of infected individuals before they show symptoms.

Bats are a major reservoir for the rabies virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

Rabies, typically transmitted in saliva, targets the brain and is almost always fatal in animals and people if left untreated. No current tests detect rabies in live animals—only brain tissue analysis is accurate.

Searching for a way to detect the virus in bats before the animals died, rabies specialist James Ellison and his colleagues at the CDC turned to a captive colony of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus). Previous studies had found temperature increases in the noses of rabid raccoons, so the team expected to see similar results with bats.

Huge arachnid with leg span of 33 cm found in Laotian cave

An enormous, new, leggy arachnid with a leg span just over 13 inches (33 centimeters) has been found lurking in the caves of the Southeast Asian nation of Laos.

The creature is a type of harvestmen, a group of arachnids colloquially called "daddy longlegs" and frequently mistaken for spiders. (The two animals are related, as both are types of arachnids.)

The species hasn't previously been described, according to a release announcing the finding.

The arachnid's super-long legs make it one of the largest harvestmen ever found. The record-holding species, from South America, has a leg span of 13.4 inches (34 cm), according to the statement.

The creature was discovered by Peter Jäger, an arachnologist at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany. Jäger found the creature recently while in Laos to film a TV show, collecting spiders and arachnids in between shots.

After failing to identify the species himself, Jäger enlisted the help of a harvestmen expert who couldn't find any published description of the animal.

The researchers haven't named the new species yet, and hope to conduct a study of it to pinpoint its place in the harvestmen's evolutionary family tree.


Source: MSNBC

Three New Arthropod Species Have Been Found in the Maestrazgo Caves in Teruel

Pygmarrhopalites maestrazgoensis

A team of scientists from the University of Navarra and the Catalan Association of Biospeleology have discovered three new collembolan species in the Maestrazgo caves in Teruel, Spain. Their description has been published in the Zootaxa journal. These minute animals belong to one of the most ancient animal species on the planet.

The Maestrazgo caves in Teruel are located in a region of the Iberian Range where fauna has not been the subject of much study. It is a very isolated region since its average altitude is between 1,550 m and 2,000 m asl and its climate can be described as "almost extreme" experiencing temperatures of between -40°C and -25°C. Inside the caves, however, the temperatures remain constant at between 5°C and 11°C.

Fascinating new discovery at Machu Picchu, Peru

Archaeologists have made a fascinating discovery at the Incan citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru. A tomb, thought to belong to a high ranking member of the Inca Empire, has been uncovered in a cave at the archaeological complex and is creating more intrigue around this ‘lost city’ of the Incas.

The tomb is strategically placed on a hill facing the wall of Machu Picchu, indicating the importance of the person buried inside. Specialists are examining the tomb but have not found any bones or ornaments inside which is due to raiding that took place at Machu Picchu before the site was conserved and protected.

American explorer, politician and professor, Hiram Bingham rediscovered the site in 1911 and since then Machu Picchu is now protected and a UNESCO World Heritage site. The newly discovered tomb will eventually be restored in order to be accessible to visitors.

Limestone ecosystem threatened as demand for cement grows

Bats hang from the ceiling of the Moso cave in Hon Chong,
Vietnam. Hundreds of species live in the limestone caves
yet their habitat is being blown apart in the name of making
cement.

Hundreds of species live in the limestone caves of Hon Chong in southern Vietnam, and many of them are found nowhere else on Earth. Yet their habitat is being blown apart, chunk by chunk, in the name of making cement.

One reason, biologists lament, is that these are creatures no one would want to hug, and many would want to stomp.

Spiders. Mites. Millipedes.

People who have been trying to save them from extinction for more than 15 years have found few allies in government, industry or among local residents.

"The problem is that limestone caves do not (have) any charismatic animals or plants that would melt people's hearts if they died out," Peter Ng Kee Lin, a biologist at the National University of Singapore, said by email.

The degradation of Asia's vast but fragile limestone ecosystems is continuing apace as the region's demand for cement grows along with its economies. Limestone is a key ingredient in cement, the second-most consumed substance on Earth after water, and is used to build desperately needed houses, roads and bridges.

Somerset cavers spend their retirement tunnelling into the Mendips

To uncover the secrets of what is thought to be the largest cavern ever found in the Mendip Hills in Somerset has taken a group of cavers more than four years of dedicated tunnelling.

And to get to the vast cavern takes half an hour of grovelling on hands and knees, scrambling across massive boulders and squeezing through 700 ft of tiny passages.

So why would a group of retired doctors, teachers and engineers spend their retirement buried underground tunnelling deep into the hills of the Mendips?

Cave Rescue Required After Medical Emergency

Update 13/09/2012:

A Nashville man is recovering at Vanderbilt Medical Center, after suffering a stroke while hiking in a Maury County Cave.

48-year-old Darrell Smith is now in stable condition.

He and a few of his friends were taking a guided tour of Miller's Cave, near Mount Pleasant.

"We were fixing to do the rest of the tour when the guy, he was standing up, and he more or less just sat down, and the girl asked him what was wrong, and we knew right then something wasn't right," said Buddy Baldwin, who owns the property on which the cave is located. "I pretty well knew instantly that he'd either had a heart attack or a stroke."

Lascaux 4 plans axed in €1bn cuts

Plans to help fund a giant facsimile of the Lascaux caves in the Dordogne have been scrapped under government cuts - but local councillors say they will save the €50million project.

Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti said that several cultural projects announced by the previous government - totalling almost a billion euros but mostly unbudgeted - would be scrapped, delayed or postponed.

These included the Lascaux 4 reconstruction near Montignac, the Maison de l'Histoire de France national history museum, a reserve art store for the Louvre at Cergy-Pontoise, and an extra theatre for the Comédie-Française.

Ms Filipetti said that Lascaux 4 was "not a priority project" but Bernard Cazeau, president of Dordogne conseil général, said that was "surprising" as the plans to safeguard the hillside above Lascaux were laid under instructions from the government and Unesco.

Cave divers discover massive grotto hidden in the depths of Cheddar Gorge

New discovery: The giant underground chamber, named
The Frozen Deep, that has recently been found inside Cheddar
Gorge in Somerset.

A group of cave divers have uncovered a massive chamber below the Cheddar Gorge after four years of searching and hundreds of hours of digging.

The huge space, which had been named 'The Frozen Deep' by the team, is a staggering 60 metres in diameter and reaches up to 30 metres high.

It contains stunning calcite formations - including two pure white columns each standing at five-metres tall - surrounded by white flowstone on the walls and floor.

'Tuesday Diggers', a group of local cave divers, discovered the chamber after spending four hours a week for four years digging, breaking rocks and opening 50cm passages.

Hugh Cornwell, director of Cheddar Gorge and Caves, in Somerset, said: 'This is a truly significant discovery by the 'Diggers' which opens up a fascinating new chapter in the history of Mendip cave exploration.

'The question already emerging is whether they can now find a connection from The Frozen Deep to the River Cave.

Endangered Spider Discovery Stops $15 Million Texas Highway Construction Project

While biologists may be rejoicing over the recent discovery of a rare spider that was thought to be extinct, not everyone is elated -- particularly commuters around San Antonio, Texas.

Workers found the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver (Cicurina venii) spider, which hasn't been seen in three decades, in the middle of a $15.1 million highway construction project in northwestern San Antonio. The eyeless arachnid is on the endangered species list—since construction would disrupt the spider's natural habitat, the project has been halted for the foreseeable future.

Jean Krejca, a biologist and President of Zara Environmental who was consulting on the project, made the extraordinary discovery after a downpour of rain revealed a 6-foot deep spider hole. After dissecting the spider, a taxonomist later confirmed that the distinct-looking arachnid was, in fact, the Meshweaver, named for its pattern of webbing.

The Meshweaver was placed on the federal endangered species list in 2000, along with eight other spiders found only in the Texas county. George Veni first identified the spider in 1980 in a location five miles away from the construction site.

SUI announces “Kozslowski Exploration Fund”

Coinciding with Artur Kozslowski’s first anniversary, SUI are announcing the setting up of a fund to help Irish cavers looking for new caves in Ireland. 

In his few years as a caver in Ireland Artur contributed greatly to increasing our knowledge of the Irish underground world both by his own explorations and his enthusiasm and drive. 

This fund will offer small contributions to original speleological exploration work for members of SUI in Ireland. Applications can be made to, and will be adjudicated by the expedition sub committee. Further details will be announced at SUICRO 2012

Source: SUI

Prince Andrew says never again after rappelling down Europe’s tallest building

Britain’s Prince Andrew has rappelled 785 feet (239 meters) down the side of Europe’s tallest building to raise money for charity.

The 52-year-old’s stunt began on London skyscraper The Shard’s 87th floor and finished on the 20th, and took him 30 minutes.

Following the descent Monday morning, the prince said: “I will never do it again.”

Andrew was part of a group of about 40 participants raising funds for the Outward Bound Trust and the Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund.

The prince — chairman of the trustees of the Outward Bound Trust — raised 290,000 pounds ($460,000).

Following the stunt, Andrew told reporters the “difficult bit was actually stepping out over the edge,” but said his training with the Royal Marines had given him the confidence.

Source: The Washington Post

Four Hebrew U. researchers reach new lows in Abkhazia, and find new species of transparent fish

Boaz Langford of the Israeli cave exploration delegation
at a depth of 2,080 meters in the Krubera-Voronya cave in Abkhazia

Four researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem partook in a spelunking expedition to the deepest cave in the world, also known as the “Everest of the caves.”

The four explorers — Boaz Langford, Leonid Fagin, Vladimir Buslov and Yuval Elmaliach — joined the Ukrainian Speleological Association as part of an international delegation that aimed to break the world record for deepest place reached by spelunkers. On the team, which just returned from the trip, were members from nine countries, including Israel and Lebanon.

“The purpose of the venture was to break the world’s record for cave exploration — an achievement reached when a Ukrainian researcher reached a depth of 2,196 meters beneath the earth’s surface, five meters deeper than the previous record,” Professor Amos Frumkin of the Department of Geography at the Hebrew University, who heads the university’s cave research unit, said in a press statement on Sunday.

Azokh cave exotic excerpts to be on disposal in Artsakh and Yerevan (Armenia)

The excavation works have resumed in Hadrut destrict Azokh and Drakhtik villages, Artsakh on August 29.Levon Episkoposyan, one of the heads of Azokh cave excavation told in the briefing with Armenpress, the excavations carried out by the group comprising of both European and Armenian specialists are aimed at revealing the cultural layers of the cave. "The excavations carried out in Azokh cave ceased in 1960, yet decades after the works restarted in 2002, current year excavation already mark the the 11th period of the excavations" the interlocutor noted.

In the words of Episkoposyan Azokh cave is the richest historical and cultural monument and in case all the layers of the cave will be examined, it would become possible to gather information about our ancestors and their lifestyle dating back to 350-400 thousand years." Azokh cave excerpts stored in special boxes are being kept in Stepanakert history museum.Those samples which need further study are being sent abroad by our foreign partners’ help due to the lack of appropriate equipment in Armenia" the specialist stated.

Excavation head notes with gratitude on the occasion of NKR declaration day September 2, 15- 20 samples of Azokh cave are scheduled to be demonstrated in Stepanakert history museum."The exhibition will last for two months, high ranking officials, foreign quests are set to take part in the opening ceremony. By the decision of the Government, the same exhibition is set to be launched in Shushi history museum as well, if possible the exhibition will be hosted in capital Yerevan too" the interlocutor underscored.

Source: ArmenPress

Stunning pictures show rainbow effect in deep Alabama cave

Plunged into the darkness surrounded by a spectacular shaft of light, these stunning pictures show daredevil explorers lowering themselves into a deep cave on the abseiling trip of a lifetime.
The amazing photographs appear to show abseilers hanging by a thread as they descend into Stephen's Gap - a geological wonder in Alabama, USA.
Daredevil photographer Amy Hinkle had to be strapped up in safety gear as she balanced on a slippy ledge inside the cave to capture the images.

Amy, from Chicago, said: 'I have been a caver for over two years and enjoyed photography for much longer. Getting photos in the underground world is entirely different, however.
'There is no light but what you bring with you, except near entrances, of course, where you get some sunlight.
'I have worked hard to develop techniques to bring light to these pitch-black underground systems without the use of massive amounts of equipment.

Eyeless cave fish oceans apart, but turn out to be cousins

This composite image shows Typhleotris pauliani (top),
a previously known species of Malagasy cave fish,
and a newly discovered pigmented species (bottom).

A group of freshwater fish in Madagascar and another in Australia have a lot in common. Both are tiny, have no eyes and live in the total darkness of limestone caves. Now scientists say these two groups are more alike than thought — they are actually each other's closest cousins, despite the ocean between them.

Using DNA analysis, researchers found that the two types of blind fish — Typhleotris in Madagascar and Milyeringa in Australia — descended from a common ancestor and were estranged by continental drift nearly 100 million years ago. The scientists say their finding marks an important first.

"This is the first time that a taxonomically robust study has shown that blind cave vertebrates on either side of an ocean are each other's closest relatives," researcher Prosanta Chakrabarty of Louisiana State University said in a statement. "This is a great example of biology informing geology. Often, that's how things work. These animals have no eyes and live in isolated freshwater caves, so it is highly unlikely they could have crossed oceans to inhabit new environments."

Underground passage discovered in Argyll

The caving group said it was continuing to map the new discoveries

A new underground passage in Argyll has been discovered by members of Scotland's largest caving club, the Grampian Speleological Group (GSG).

About 200m of new passage has been found in a number of caves, with the longest single discovery standing at about 100m in length.

The group said the "rare find" comes only a year after it discovered a major new cave in Applecross.

Exploration and mapping of these caves near Appin is ongoing by the team.

The second deepest cave in the World became deeper

An ongoing joint expedition of caving clubs from several Siberian sities to Sarma Cave in the Arabika Massif (Western Caucasus), led by Pavel Rudko, has reported that the cave has been pushed 60 m below the previous deepest point (-1760 m) reached last year.

This firmly establishes Sarma Cave as the second deepest cave in the world with depth of 1830 m, following Krubera Cave, located in the same massif, which has been explored this August to -2197 m by the Ukrainian expedition. The third place is hold by Snezhnaya Cave in the nearby Bzybsky Massif, with a depth of 1760 m.

Source: Speleogenesis

Radohine Cave Expedition (Albania)

Follow the adventures of the Bulgarian caving team on their 2012 expedition into the Albanian Radohine Mountains on:

http://radohines.bgcaveexplorer.info/

Cave in Italy added to map of WWI locations

It's a cave in Italy used during World War I, and authentic artifacts are still inside.

Historians knew about the cave because an Austrian officer wrote about it in his war diary, but its location wasn't revealed until two years ago by a retreating glacier.

Now officials are adding it to a map of World War I locations, but you can only visit it with the help of a mountain guide.

Bighorn Forest closes caves to protect bats

Managers on the Bighorn National Forest are reminding the public that entering caves on the forest to protect bats from contracting a disease that's killed millions of bats elsewhere in the country.

Regional Forester Dan Jiron recently extended an order that bars entering caves or abandoned mines on national forests and grasslands in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.

The Forest Service says the closure is necessary to protect bat species and habitat from the spread of White-nose Syndrome. Experts estimate that the fungal disease has killed more than 5 million bats in the eastern U.S. and Canada. They say it's continuing to spread west.

Source: Huffington Post

Young British snorkeller drowns in Comino caves

A 20-year-old Briton drowned while snorkelling in underwater caves around Santa Marija Bay in Comino yesterday afternoon.

Marcus Hughes-Hallet was on holiday with his parents and was diving from one cave to the other when he “got stuck in the rocks beneath the caves,” the Armed Forces of Malta said.

His father called for help and a number of people dived down to look for him. After several attempts they managed to bring him to the surface but Mr Hughes-Hallet was not breathing, the AFM said.