How many known caves in each state?

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Postby bill fish » Aug 23, 2007 9:39 am

Hi all

One consideration for me in turning in "small" caves to a state wide cave survey is how "cavey" they feel...

In the TAG (tenn,ala,ga) area you can wander the hillsides...finding all kinds of voids that could be called caves if your length/depth/whatever criteria is "easy" enough...

My decision making process to turn something in?

1 Airflow or water flow that might someday be able to be followed more than it is in its current natural state?

2 Does it feel like a little cave that just quite couldnt grow up to be a big guy? Or in other words...it feels like caves are trying to form here...versus these are just random voids near/at the suface that happen to be in limestone....

3 Are there lots of other caves in the area....if yes...not much point turning in a pud hole....everyone already knows this is a major karst area...and that more looking here will eventually likely find more...

4 Few/no caves in the area....probably turn in so folks at least now know there is at least the potential of something here...that they may not have realized previously..

5...nothing better to turn in or map at that time....

6...Small, but maybe pushable...related to 1 in most cases..

7...something particularly "cool/neat" about it....

8..really nice? explore it, bury it...and dont tell anyone :).....well maybe put something in my will....

I know this is probably making the statisticians/geologists have seizures.....but hey its my game and the pay sucks....

Blll
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Postby wyandottecaver » Nov 9, 2007 9:03 pm

I followed NZ's advice to search the forum so blame him for me reviving a dead horse :P

I'll blatantly admit that I think the fed standard is ridiculous from a scientific point of view so you know my bias.

I think an important point about the federal law is what it was meant to do from a lawyer's standpoint who were of course the ones who wrote it!. By making a definition that included almost any natural void a person could enter they 1) made a definition easy to apply everywhere without them having to think about what a cave really was and 2)extended the regulatory authority of various statutes to those features. Why would a "scientific" definition of a geologic feature use such a ludicrous unit of measure as "a person", unless of course it was because persons were what you wanted to regulate!

If an single entrance is too small for a person to enter even though the void behind it is huge, it's not a cave? until of course you remove a few inches of limestone rim and voila! now it's a cave? (not that you should do this, just making a point)

Also, inflating your cave count too much might lead to the passenger pigeon mentality of who cares if we destroy something that there are lots of. so, If ABC quarries wanted to quarry "24 mile cave" in a state using the federal standard with 100,000 "caves" would a non-caving review group think that was a big loss?

I do think it is useful to distinguish between karst features and caves as many states do. I've often thought that trying to define "a cave" is much like trying to define "a rock". You can get something that applies to all rocks but it's not otherwise very useful. we would be much better served by developing science based categorization systems where you might have several tiers of cave definitions (think stratigraphy) based on things like biological systems, volume, area beyond twilight, origin process, etc.

In this way you might say that state A has 100 tier I caves and 2 tier III caves while State B has 1000 tier II caves. that way you could tailor descriptions to meet the cave morphology by region while still having a system that could be standardized.
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Postby Teresa » Nov 9, 2007 9:27 pm

wyandottecaver wrote: Why would a "scientific" definition of a geologic feature use such a ludicrous unit of measure as "a person", unless of course it was because persons were what you wanted to regulate!


The definition of a cave [speleo type] from the American Geological Institute's Glossary of Geology is: "A natural underground open space, generally with a connection to the surface and large enough for a person to enter."

It don't get any more "scientific" than that! (The NSS is a member of the AGI, as are most of the professional geological societies).


I do think it is useful to distinguish between karst features and caves as many states do. I've often thought that trying to define "a cave" is much like trying to define "a rock". You can get something that applies to all rocks but it's not otherwise very useful.


Same source: "rock: An aggregate of one or more minerals, e.g. granite, shale, marble; or a body of undifferentiated mineral matter, e.g., obsidian, or of solid organic matter, e.g. coal.

Sounds pretty useful to me.


we would be much better served by developing science based categorization systems where you might have several tiers of cave definitions (think stratigraphy) based on things like biological systems, volume, area beyond twilight, origin process, etc.


You are obviously a splitter, not a lumper. Also, biology moves or may go extinct. Not a very good criteria for defining something inorganic like a cave.

:rofl: :rofl:
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Postby wyandottecaver » Nov 9, 2007 10:13 pm

*sigh* o.k. I'll bite. the definition you originally posted as the federal legal standard and which I was commenting on was:

"I don't understand why the states don't go along with the federal definition. It includes all the big stuff, while omitting obvous vugs and other karst features.

(1) CAVE.-The term "cave" means any naturally occurring void, cavity,
recess, or system of interconnected passages which occurs beneath the surface of the earth or within a cliff or ledge (including any cave resource therein, but not including any vug, mine, tunnel, aqueduct, or other man-made excavation) and which is large enough to permit an individual to enter, whether or not the entrance is naturally formed or man-made. Such term shall include any natural pit, sinkhole, or other feature which is an extension of the entrance"

the AGI definition is quite different in many respects, and is itself not clearly written at least as quoted. the biggest difference being it seems to be only "any natural underground void". the void "might" have a connection to the surface and that entrance "might" be passable by people but neither is required as it is worded. an AGI cave can be the interior of a hollow geode?

as to the rock anology:

"Same source: "rock: An aggregate of one or more minerals, e.g. granite, shale, marble; or a body of undifferentiated mineral matter, e.g., obsidian, or of solid organic matter, e.g. coal.

Sounds pretty useful to me."

Useful for what? saying that a rock isn't a tree? yes..unless of course we compress the tree to "solid organic matter" then its a rock? Not to say the AGI definitions aren't useful for their purposes, but not very helpful in describing and delineating features for this discussion in my opinion

I admittedly was not clear in my post by what I meant by "useful". I was intending my remark to imply that the federal "cave" definition was not useful from the standpoint of standardizing state cave surveys. the AGI definition of caves and rocks may be useful for their applications

I only included biology as 1 variable in an incomplete list of variables as examples of things that might be used to develop a classification system, not as "the" system.

In any event I apologize for steering this thread a bit off topic.
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Postby Teresa » Nov 9, 2007 11:41 pm

Both the FCRPA definition and the AGI definition were typed with the paper documents sitting on the desk, so they are verbatim.

as to the rock analogy:

"Same source: "rock: An aggregate of one or more minerals, e.g. granite, shale, marble; or a body of undifferentiated mineral matter, e.g., obsidian, or of solid organic matter, e.g. coal.

Sounds pretty useful to me."

Useful for what? saying that a rock isn't a tree? yes..unless of course we compress the tree to "solid organic matter" then its a rock? Not to say the AGI definitions aren't useful for their purposes, but not very helpful in describing and delineating features for this discussion in my opinion

I admittedly was not clear in my post by what I meant by "useful". I was intending my remark to imply that the federal "cave" definition was not useful from the standpoint of standardizing state cave surveys. the AGI definition of caves and rocks may be useful for their applications


I don't believe you are ever going to get the so-called standard definitions you want, if you think that the AGI defs are only useful for some purposes.
You see, neither cave nor rock can ever be defined with ultimate precision, as say defining a meter as the distance light travels through a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. All we will ever have on such things as cave and rock are working definitions, because the variables in the natural occurences of both classes which we call cave and rock are virtually infinite. And that's just in English, nevermind the other languages of the world.

The basic problem is the same as between arithmetic and calculus. You can define 1 as half of 2, and as discrete conceptual units and get away with it because 1 and 2 are just concepts. Caves and rocks are real objects, and they will never entirely fit the conceptual definition, just as .999999... will never actually equal 1, though it does so for all practical purposes.

I only included biology as 1 variable in an incomplete list of variables as examples of things that might be used to develop a classification system, not as "the" system.


My difficulty with including biology in the definition of a cave is the same as including water. It may or may not be there at a given time. In your previous post you said something about several tiers of factors in order to define a specific tier of cave. Some states already do that by length. (a moving target, to be sure, but at least quantifiable). Instead of a stratigraphic column, I would suggest using a decision tree system (think fossil clades, or botanical binomial key (A has either B or not; If B, proceed to C, if not, proceed to D) to split out your subsets.

These would have to be factors which are relatively constant over most caves, however; a cave shouldn't fit in C (has water) in February, and D (does not have water) in October. On the other hand, whether or not a cave has a streambed (not water, just the watercourse) is constant, and would be useful as a factor all year round.

All that being said: all sciences and math begin with assumptions or definitions. Language has no such restrictions: I can define green as red, and you can define red as green; poetry does it all the time, which distinguishes it from science, and neither of us is intrinsically right or wrong.

Good luck constructing your cave tier system with the fewest exceptions possible. :grin:
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Speleobase

Postby Leclused » Nov 11, 2007 4:48 am

Hi there,

I don't know how many caves there are in a specific state but I do know that you need a good tool to store and consult your cave data.

Paul de Bie, chairman of SC Avalon, programmed a windows application especially designed for cavers that explore new caves. It can be downloaded here

http://www.scavalon.be/avalonuk/software/software.htm

Mayby it is usefull ?

BR

Dagobert L'Ecluse (Sc Avalon - Belgium)
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Postby wyandottecaver » Nov 12, 2007 4:45 pm

The Indiana Cave Survey uses a customized Access Database that seems to work great. In conjunction with ARCGIS allows for a tremendous amount of flexibility.
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Re: How many known caves in each state?

Postby wyandottecaver » Jan 15, 2008 8:58 pm

I'm hoping to revive a dead thread (which I helped kill..) by noting (hopefully correctly) that only 17 of the states were mentioned with estimated numbers. these were AL, DE, FL, GA, IN, KY, LA, MD, MO, NC, NJ, PA, RI, SC, TN, VA, and WV. I didn't include Canada..sorry. Any more? I like others find this would be an interesting list. No need to haggle over the definition since even if we agreed, we would have to re-calculate the numbers and Bob Gulden already has 1+ mi list. I realize some states may have no known caves. Below is the current CaveChat Tally. We can edit the post as we go to update it.

AL 4165
AK
AZ 575
AR
CA
CO
CT
DE 1
DC
FL 1300
GA 600
HI
ID
IL
IN 3200
IA
KS
KY 5200
LA 1-10
ME
MD 150
MA
MI
MN
MS 32
MO 6210
MT
NE
NV
NH
NJ 100
NM
NY
NC 1300
ND
OH
OK
OR
PA 1500
RI 0-1
SC 500
SD 325
TN 9000
TX
UT
VT
VA 4378
WA
WV 4700
WI
WY 386
Last edited by wyandottecaver on Feb 11, 2008 6:35 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: How many known caves in each state?

Postby Aaron Addison » Jan 16, 2008 5:52 pm

Here's a first try at a cartogram based on the number of caves for each state. As more data comes in, it is easy to rerun the map. I tried to run some quick queries on the web and it was surprisingly difficult to find some of the total known cave numbers.

Number of Caves by State Cartogram


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Re: How many known caves in each state?

Postby wyandottecaver » Jan 16, 2008 6:05 pm

dunno if it is just my display, but it looks like it took the states that had caves, and expanded them to fill the outline of the US. very weird :shrug:

Aaron, did you find more data than is listed above? It looked like your map had CA. I'd like to try and update the actual numbers as we find them.
Last edited by wyandottecaver on Jan 16, 2008 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How many known caves in each state?

Postby David Grimes » Jan 16, 2008 6:09 pm

It's not working for me either just looks like a yellow and red bubble kind of.
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Re: How many known caves in each state?

Postby Aaron Addison » Jan 16, 2008 7:59 pm

Actually, it looks right albeit skewed due to lack of data. A cartogram "weights" the size of each state based on an attribute. The big red spot in the middle is Tennessee. Texas is to the lower left. The entire west coast is pulled in to a dot because I don't have any numbers yet.

I redid the map without the weights and you should be able to use it to compare.

Number of Caves by State Map

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Re: How many known caves in each state?

Postby wyandottecaver » Jan 16, 2008 9:21 pm

this interesting image is from the USGS. unfortunately, the only list of caves by state I found on their site was in error. i.e. IN=398 KY=1057 CA=400

http://interactive2.usgs.gov/learningweb/teachers/explorecaves_america.htm
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Re: How many known caves in each state?

Postby Evan G » Jan 16, 2008 10:14 pm

From some very basic data I have complied Wyoming is at 386 caves, but there are problably more than that.
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Re: How many known caves in each state?

Postby rpaylor » Jan 17, 2008 2:41 pm

Been a while since I looked at this thread. Just an update on Kentucky - we don't have an exact number, but have data on about 5200 caves right now. There are good locations for about 3800 of them, and the rest have either approximate locations, or just which county/quad they're in. The Kentucky Speleological Survey is still fairly new and typically lacking on lots of volunteer help, but we're getting lots of new data. These numbers will definitely go up some more.

It was interesting what someone said about cave surveys actually being entrance surveys. We recently dealt with this by creating a relational database with a unique entry for the cave system, and a sub-tables for entrances. Otherwise Mammoth would count as about 15 caves (maybe it should count as more, though! :shock: )
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