Cavechat.org

So, please keep in mind that the cave surveys number the caves for an entirely different reason that coming up with a total number.

Which means the caving community is going to have to live with the different definations. Plus I don't want to have to go back through WV's database and redo everything to TN's criteria.

Good point George. One thing that has always struck me as funny is that State Cave Surveys should really be called State Cave Entrance Surveys. There are not only cave systems with multiple entrances, but I can think of at least one cave system in Missouri that has multiple entrances, but none of the entrances carry the name of the cave system!


AA

Does anyone out there have a number for Maryland?? I know it insignificant but would still like to know as a Marylander...

Hi

Florida sounds pretty impressive with roughly 26 caves with over a mile of surveyed passage....

HOWEVER.....I'd hazard a guess that 23 or 24 of those are totally undewater....not to say Florida doesnt have its fair share of pretty nice caves...but long AND air filled isnt a common combination....

Drop the requirement down to a few thousand feet of surveyed passage however and THEN you''ll start to have a pretty nice list of air filled florida caves..

And of course that list doesnt include caves I am not allowed to talk about! :)

Blll

Kentucky has only one.

Ozymandias wrote:I actually hadn't really looked at this before. Very interesting. I had no idea that Missouri had so many caves (of course, I had to check Wikipedia to remember where Missouri was in the US).

Missourians tend not to be a boastful lot. They're the quiet cavers over there in the corner with the twinkle in their eyes, watching the rest of the country run around, knowing that though we think the Inter-Net is where a fish should be, we invented the cave. WE know this, because, along with Florida, we have a lot of them which aren't potty-trained yet...think about it . And ours are older than those upstarts in the Sunshine State.

Seriously...I actually was consulted as to the definition of a cave for some signage on one (small, atypical, but a famous archeo site)-- and after a bunch of hemming and hawing about 'my cave is longer/deeper than your cave' or is surrounded by the most politically correct rock decided that if someone in the US needs to define a cave, they really ought to use the definition in the FCRPA, because that is the only cave definition which does apply to all 50 states and some territories. And that's what was used.

Now if a cave survey chooses only to survey caves or karst features of a specific length--wonderful. But that should be defined as surveyable cave, not a cave per se.

killian wrote:Does anyone out there have a number for Maryland?? I know it insignificant but would still like to know as a Marylander...

According to the "Caves of Maryland" (1976), there are 148 caves in Maryland. None of which are a mile long.
Maryland's longest cave is Crabtree cave in Garrett County. It has 4200 feet of passage.
I like Crabtree, it is a fissure cave and it's passages are very tight.
The “tourist loop” is about a half mile in length and takes about 4 to 5 hours.
It’s one tough little cave...

Junkman, cool thanks... They have tours in crabtree? I would love to check that cave out... Who do i contact to get info on that?

killian wrote:Junkman, cool thanks... They have tours in crabtree? I would love to check that cave out... Who do i contact to get info on that?

LOL...
Crabtree is DEFINATLY not a commercial cave.

Hook up with one of the Grottos in Western Maryland.
It is a gated cave and requires special access.

Quebec has some 500 caves. (The data is not yet organized enough to get an exact number.) Definition is: anything natural that can be entered by a human.

Chris

One additonal attribute that I would like to see quantified is the percentage of caves for each state on private vs. public land.

This is tied to the ongoing discussion related to cave locations, geospatial information and the internet elsewhere on this site. One poster suggested making sacrifical cave locations available to the masses, but in many parts of the country that may be on private land!

DOH!

AA

Looking at City up to Federal, it looks like about 22% of known Missouri caves are publicly owned.

Spike

Over 95% of the caves in Arizona are owned by some government entity.

-Tom

West Virginia has 115 caves over a mile long now with a total count of just over 4700 caves for the state.

Maryland has just over 150 caves and Delaware has its cave.

Kentucky is between 3000-4000 right now. The numbers are in flux as they are still cleaning up the database and adding many-many-many new entries. E-mail Randy Paylor at PAYLOR@uky.edu or contact@ksscaves.org for an accurate number.

My understanding is that Virginia always has one more cave than West Virginia.