Cave on EARTH Magazine

Down to Earth With: Paleoanthropologist and underground astronaut Lindsay Hunter

Wed, 13 Feb 2019 15:14:59 -0500

Lindsay Hunter finds a perch in the Rising Star Cave in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site in South Africa, where she helped excavate the bones of Homo naledi. Over three weeks in November 2013, Hunter and her colleagues excavated more than 1,500 fossil pieces from specimens of the previously unknown hominin species. Credit: ©Wits University/Elen Feuerriegel.

In 2013, Lindsay Hunter found herself at a personal and professional crossroads. She had gone through a divorce, left the paleoanthropology doctoral program at the University of Iowa, where she had received her master’s in 2004, and moved, along with her three dogs and two cats, to live with her parents on a farm outside Austin, Texas.

Travels in Geology: Finding Florida's hidden freshwater gems

Wed, 13 Feb 2019 14:29:26 -0500

The largest of the 30 springs at Florida's Silver Springs State Park is called Mammoth, or Main, Spring. No swimming is allowed here, but visitors can view the spring from a glass-bottom boat tour. Credit: Bethany Augliere.

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. Occasionally, we’d make a trip to Orlando to visit one of the theme parks or stop at Everglades National Park to search for alligators, snakes and birds.

How to become a cave diver

Wed, 13 Feb 2019 14:15:22 -0500

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 them. However, entering the caves requires you to get a cave diving certification. That’s because cave diving has inherent challenges distinct from scuba diving’s own challenges. Even after you’re familiar with buoyancy control, breathing control and how to work your gear (all part of getting scuba certified), there’s much to learn about the specifics of cave diving. For example, if you kick incorrectly and stir up silt in an underwater cave, you can lose visibility and quickly become disoriented, which can turn deadly. Because of this, some of the most important parts of training involves learning about cave environments and talking about the psychological aspects of cave diving, along with emergency procedures, of course.

World's longest underwater cave found in Mexico

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 11:06:37 -0400

A connection between the Dos Ojos (seen here) and Sac Actun caves near Tulum, Mexico, was recently discovered. The newly combined cave system is now the longest-known underwater cave in the world. Credit: Guillén Pérez, CC BY-ND 2.0

In January, scientists and underwater explorers working with the Great Maya Aquifer (Gran Acuífero Maya, or GAM) project discovered the world’s longest flooded cave system, which stretches 347 kilometers in Quintana Roo on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

Travels in Geology: Underground awe in France: The caves of the Causses

Fri, 23 Mar 2018 12:25:26 -0400

The village of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie is built on a hill above the Lot River Valley. Credit: Callan Bentley.

The Causses du Quercy Natural Regional Park, usually just called “the Causses” (pronounced like “coast” without the “t”), in south-central France is a classic Gallic landscape of gently rolling hills divided millennia ago into farm plots, livestock grazing pastures, low, dense forests and small stone-carved towns. It’s a place where the roads curve and wiggle, the butterflies dance in the sun, and people take long lunches at outdoor patios adjacent to the local “auberge” (inn). Strolling along the tree-lined roads, you hear the buzz of insects and glimpse backyard vegetable gardens, and after a tiny car passes you with a wave, you discover a Neolithic tomb, or dolmen, surrounded by vines. The dolmen speaks profoundly of how humans have inhabited the Causses for a very long time.

Pairing geoheritage and economic development: China's Guizhou Province offers a modern model

Thu, 22 Mar 2018 14:00:53 -0400

Guizhou Province is known for its stunning karst topography. Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/KingWu.

As I admired an immaculately preserved colony of 230-million-year-old crinoids lying next to an equally impressive skeleton of a sharp-toothed ichthyosaur at China’s Guanling Fossil Group National Geopark, I thought back to family trips to North American national parks during my youth. The natural wonders I saw on those trips strongly influenced my career choice and shaped my perception of how humans fit into Earth’s long history. Today, even after more than 35 years spent studying the Earth, every visit to a spectacular natural site like this one in Guanling still engenders the same excitement and insight I had as a youngster.

Transylvanian ice cave reveals European winter climate record

Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:28:17 -0400

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. Today, the Scărișoara Ice Cave in central Romania preserves one of the longest ice records on Earth, a boon for climate researchers seeking to study how Europe’s climate has fluctuated during the Holocene.

Down to Earth With: Cave microbiologist Hazel Barton

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 10:47:10 -0400

Cave microbiologist Hazel Barton is a professor and the director of the Integrated Bioscience Program at the University of Akron in Ohio. Credit: Dave Bunnell.

In the early 1990s, when Hazel Barton was pursuing her doctorate in medical microbiology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, she enjoyed exploring caves as a hobby. She never imagined that she would one day incorporate caving into her career.

Down to Earth With: Cave scientist and paleoclimatologist Kathleen Johnson

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 09:53:48 -0500

Kathleen Johnson is an associate professor in the Department of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), where she studies speleothems to investigate past climates. Credit: Kathleen Johnson.

Paleoclimatologist Kathleen Johnson has some advice for anyone interested in tropical cave science: befriend experienced cave guides and beware of venomous snakes, ubiquitous bats and Frisbee-sized spiders.

Geomedia: Film: Exploring Florida's aquifers with filmmaker Tom Fitz

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 09:45:13 -0500

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 an underwater cave: He was waiting in position to film a sequence of divers swimming through a narrow passageway as their lights illuminated the chamber for his new, yet to be named, documentary. “I was suddenly in absolute, complete black,” Fitz says. “The kind of darkness that we rarely experience.”

Cave paintings confirm mystery European bison species

Wed, 18 Jan 2017 14:34:25 -0500

Depictions of a steppe bison painting (a) found in Lascaux Cave in France compared to a painting found in Pergouset Cave of a previously unknown cattle-bison hybrid species (b). Credit: Soubrier et al., Nature Communications, October 2016.

Modern European bison in Białowieża Forest in Poland. Credit: Rafal Kowalczyk.

Ice-age hunters had an intimate knowledge of the animals they coexisted with — and this familiarity is clearly depicted in paintings on cave walls throughout Europe. Inside a cave in France, scientists recently identified artistic evidence dating to about 17,000 years ago of a previously unknown hybrid species of cattle crossed with bison. The paintings confirm findings from recent genetic studies of fossil bison, the researchers say.

Down to Earth With: Underwater cave explorer Jill Heinerth

Wed, 30 Nov 2016 13:19:25 -0500

Jill Heinerth enters the cave at Devil's Eye Spring in Florida. Credit: Jill Heinerth, IntoThePlanet.com.

Jill Heinerth has trekked farther into caves than any woman in history, logging more than 7,000 dives across every continent and descending as far as roughly 140 meters underwater — recreational divers only reach depths down to 40 meters. She has dived inside icebergs in Antarctica, beneath the Sahara Desert, and in the turquoise waters of the Bahamas.

Cave dripwater records wildfires

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 13:13:11 -0400

The landscape above Yonderup Cave in Western Australia, after a wildfire. Credit: Pauline Treble.

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 history. That is why speleothems, cave structures formed via precipitation, can be studied as climate proxies. New research suggests that the chemistry of the cave dripwater can also contain the signature of wildfires that burned outside the cave, on the ground above the cave’s roof, yielding a more complex picture of the past.

Chinese cave art reveals record of climate change

Thu, 12 Nov 2015 09:58:36 -0500

An inscription from 1891 found in Dayu Cave (entrance shown above). Credit: both: L. Tan.

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 century, thirsty visitors to the cave recorded their pilgrimages on the walls. Now the graffiti — rendered in black pigment on the yellow cave walls — is providing scientists with a unique record of how climate change affected nearby communities between 1520 and 1920.

Ancient cave art discovered in Indonesia

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 16:06:52 -0500

Stencils of a splayed human hand in an Indonesian cave date to about 40,000 years ago. Credit: Kinez Riza.

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 date to about 40,000 years ago — but a new dating technique may put Indonesia on the ancient art map as well.

Travels in Geology: Navigating the rocks, reefs and waters of Bermuda

Sun, 04 Jan 2015 18:42:20 -0500

Much of Bermuda's coastline is rocky but the south shore hosts beautiful pink and white sand beaches. Credit: Kelly Speare.

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 is a great choice. Picturesque beaches, beautiful weather and a pleasant mix of Caribbean and British cultures make it a popular vacation destination. It’s also a place where geology and history are on display, making both relaxation and exploration easy.

Ancient storms recorded in Yucatán cave

Tue, 04 Nov 2014 10:50:10 -0500

Cenote Ik Kil, near Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Credit: ©WikimediaCommons/Dmadeo.

Today, one can find a plethora of records about coastal storms — everything from local news footage of wading meteorologists to the moment-to-moment wind speeds and barometric pressures of entire seasons of Atlantic hurricanes recorded in NOAA databases. Ancient storms are harder to track, unless they left a mark in the geologic record. Now, researchers have a new proxy record, one of the longest to date, to study ancient storms.

Southeastern caves shuttered to slow the spread of bat-killing disease

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 22:27:07 -0400

Little brown bat with White Nose Syndrome. Credit: Moriarty Marvin, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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 wiped out more than 5 million bats in the eastern U.S., and efforts to halt its southern and western spread have become increasingly desperate.

Ancient skeleton found in underwater cave reveals DNA of earliest Americans

Fri, 16 May 2014 12:17:38 -0400

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 later fill with glacial meltwater at the end of the last Ice Age. The pit, called Hoyo Negro, Spanish for “Black Hole,” part of the San Actun cave system beneath Mexico’s Eastern Yucatán Peninsula, has now yielded one of the oldest human skeletons ever found in North America.

Getting there and getting around in Cuba

Fri, 19 Jul 2013 17:23:49 -0400

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 “people-to-people” travel to Cuba for U.S. citizens. Because booking with this type of travel agency is required, the U.S. State Department’s website on visiting Cuba is a great place to start: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1097.html.

New dates place Spanish cave art as oldest in Europe

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:31:02 -0400

Scientists have redated art in El Castillo Cave in Spain. The new dates place a hand stencil at earlier than 37,300 years ago and a red disk at earlier than 40,600 years ago — the oldest cave paintings in Europe. Image courtesy of Pedro Saura

The Panel of Hands in El Castillo Cave. Scientists have found a new date for a hand stencil: It is at least 37,300 years old. Image courtesy of Pedro Saura

Researchers removing calcite samples for dating from Tito Bustillo Cave, Spain. New dates put the art at between 29,000 and 36,000 years old. Image courtesy of Rodrigo De Balbín Behrmann

But were the artists modern humans or Neanderthals?

Scientists have studied Paleolithic cave art for more than a century, but new research suggests paintings and carvings in some Spanish caves are thousands of years older than previously thought, which would make them the oldest cave art in Europe. The new evidence has left researchers wondering if the artists were modern humans or Neanderthals.

Geologic Column: Snow globes, light shows and t-shirts

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:51:09 -0500

Horseshoe Falls from Niagara Falls, Ontario. Johnny Albert 10

American and Bridal Falls of Niagara Falls. Ujjwal Kumar

It seemed like a simple question. “What do you think the most commercialized geologic site is?”

Bats and white-nose syndrome = VA cavers, please stay out

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

The endangered Indiana bat. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Bats with white-nose syndrome in New York. Nancy Heaslip, New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation

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 years, hundreds of thousands of hibernating bats in the northeastern United States with this fungus have died. Among the most affected are the little brown bat and the endangered Indiana bat.

Mysterious disease sounds the death knell for bats

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

A little brown bat with a white muzzle characteristic of White Nose Syndrome. Alan Hicks

Dead bats liter the floor of Aeolus Cave near Manchester, Vt. Alan Hicks

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 the eastern United States. The killer is White Nose Syndrome, a mysterious disease inflicted by an unusual cold-loving fungus that attacks bats while they are hibernating. Come spring, as few as 5 percent of the bats in heavily infected roosts are still alive.