February 13, 2019
Down to Earth With: Paleoanthropologist and underground astronaut Lindsay Hunter
In 2013, Lindsay Hunter found herself at a personal and professional crossroads. She had gone through a divorce, left the paleoanthropology …
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February 13, 2019
Travels in Geology: Finding Florida's hidden freshwater gems
As a child, my family and I often traveled to Florida to escape the chilly Virginia winters and enjoy the Sunshine State’s warm sunny beaches. …
February 13, 2019
How to become a cave diver
While snorkeling the spring pools is cool (no pun intended), a more in-depth way to experience Florida’s freshwater springs is to scuba dive in …
April 10, 2018
World's longest underwater cave found in Mexico
In January, scientists and underwater explorers working with the Great Maya Aquifer (Gran Acuífero Maya, or GAM) project discovered the world’s …
March 23, 2018
Travels in Geology: Underground awe in France: The caves of the Causses
The Causses du Quercy Natural Regional Park, usually just called “the Causses” (pronounced like “coast” without the “t”), in south-central France …
March 22, 2018
Pairing geoheritage and economic development: China's Guizhou Province offers a modern model
As I admired an immaculately preserved colony of 230-million-year-old crinoids lying next to an equally impressive skeleton of a sharp-toothed …
August 10, 2017
Transylvanian ice cave reveals European winter climate record
Over the last 10,000 years, water dripping into a cave in Transylvania has frozen into one of the largest and oldest cave glaciers in the world. …
July 21, 2017
Down to Earth With: Cave microbiologist Hazel Barton
In the early 1990s, when Hazel Barton was pursuing her doctorate in medical microbiology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in …
February 9, 2017
Down to Earth With: Cave scientist and paleoclimatologist Kathleen Johnson
Paleoclimatologist Kathleen Johnson has some advice for anyone interested in tropical cave science: befriend experienced cave guides and beware …
February 9, 2017
Geomedia: Film: Exploring Florida's aquifers with filmmaker Tom Fitz
Filmmaker Tom Fitz describes the first time he found himself sitting, alone, more than 20 meters below Earth’s surface and about 300 meters into …
January 18, 2017
Cave paintings confirm mystery European bison species
Ice-age hunters had an intimate knowledge of the animals they coexisted with — and this familiarity is clearly depicted in paintings on cave …
November 30, 2016
Down to Earth With: Underwater cave explorer Jill Heinerth
Jill Heinerth has trekked farther into caves than any woman in history, logging more than 7,000 dives across every continent and descending as …
October 18, 2016
Cave dripwater records wildfires
Water seeps through soil and bedrock before dripping from the roof of a cave and carries with it elements of the outside world and its climate …
November 12, 2015
Chinese cave art reveals record of climate change
In times of drought, Dayu Cave in the Qinling Mountains of central China has remained a reliable source of water, and since at least the 16th …
January 5, 2015
Ancient cave art discovered in Indonesia
Europe has long been thought to have been the home of the oldest art in the world — including a stash of cave paintings in northern Spain that …
January 4, 2015
Travels in Geology: Navigating the rocks, reefs and waters of Bermuda
The Bermuda Triangle is not an actual scientific phenomenon. But if a family were looking for a place to disappear to for a week or so, Bermuda …
November 4, 2014
Ancient storms recorded in Yucatán cave
Today, one can find a plethora of records about coastal storms — everything from local news footage of wading meteorologists to the …
June 5, 2014
Southeastern caves shuttered to slow the spread of bat-killing disease
Since White Nose Syndrome was first identified in dead bats recovered from a cave in New York state in 2006, the mysterious fungal disease has …
May 16, 2014
Ancient skeleton found in underwater cave reveals DNA of earliest Americans
Between 13,000 and 12,000 years ago, a teenage girl entered a cave, likely searching for water, and fell to her death into a pit, which would …
July 19, 2013
Getting there and getting around in Cuba
Because of the U.S. embargo against Cuba, U.S. citizens must go through a travel agency licensed by the U.S. Treasury Department that provides …
June 14, 2012
New dates place Spanish cave art as oldest in Europe
But were the artists modern humans or Neanderthals? Scientists have studied Paleolithic cave art for more than a century, but new research …
January 20, 2012
Geologic Column: Snow globes, light shows and t-shirts
It seemed like a simple question. “What do you think the most commercialized geologic site is?” My curiosity had been piqued by a trip through …
January 5, 2012
Mysterious disease sounds the death knell for bats
These are dark days for bats. Hundreds of thousands of tiny white-nosed bats have died over the past few winters, falling to cave floors across …
January 5, 2012
Bats and white-nose syndrome = VA cavers, please stay out
Blogging on EARTH The name sounds pretty innocuous, but white-nose syndrome (WNS) is rapidly becoming very bad news for bats; in just a couple of …