Rare cave critter linked to water quality, aquifer protectio

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Rare cave critter linked to water quality, aquifer protectio

Postby Cheryl Jones » Oct 15, 2008 3:25 pm

Cave critters linked to quality of water
Research into isopods may help protect water resources in the Valley

Wednesday, Oct 15, 2008
By CARLOS SANTOS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

GROTTOES The Madison Cave isopod, a rare, blind, pigment-less cave dweller, must be the weirdest-looking sentinel of water quality in the country.

Found only on 12 sites in certain parts of the Shenandoah Valley and a splinter of West Virginia, the free-swimming crustacean is fully adapted to a light-free life underground and underwater. Scientists are now trying to determine how many there are and where else it may live.

The answers may help protect water resources of the Shenandoah Valley.

Read on, and watch the slide show. (Yea NSS members Will and John.! :clap: )
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx. ... -0095.html
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Cheryl Jones
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Re: Rare cave critter linked to water quality, aquifer protectio

Postby Ralph E. Powers » Oct 15, 2008 5:03 pm

Cool beans. Imagine the loss had this cave been visited by vandals or others of not-conservation mind.
Without the possibility of death, adventure is not possible. ~ Reinhold Messner


http://ralph.rigidtech.com/albums.php
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