Digital ridgewalking tools

[George Dasher]

So, I had Election Day off, and some of us went ridgewalking. (Yes I did vote. Early!)

Anyoldway, one person had a digital camera with a GPS receiver built in. Everytime he took a picture of a karst feature, he also got a location.

Once back at the old barn, we downloaded his pictures and got three files for each pictures. One was just a simple jpg, the other was a picture stamped with the time and data, and third had an accompanying file that gave the time and date, the location, and various other things, like the PDOP.

We then downloaded the created shape file into Arcview, and viewed a map with all our picture locations plotted. This also gave us the locations of the karst features we had seen--which included three caves.

The final step was to take the digital map, locate the correct locations for the new-found features, and get the correct coordinates for them.

It was all very modern!!

But at least the computer gave the coordinates for the corrected locations, so I didn't have to figure up the latitude and longitude by hand.

[MUD]

Don't ya just love it George? Who woulda thunk it 25 years ago?!?! How will we be doin it 25 years from now???

[Ralph E. Powers]

Don't ya just love it George? Who woulda thunk it 25 years ago?!?! How will we be doin it 25 years from now???

Taking a Star Trek like Tricorder and pointing it at a karst feature that'll reveal a void behind the rocks... including a interior map. That'd be neat because it'll show where the highest point of the cave passages are and with that knowledge a better chance of finding an entrance... even if it's not an open entrance one will know where to dig

Just out of curiosity what model is that camera with added GPS feature and how accurate is it?

[wyandottecaver]

Actually Ralph technology close to that is in late development. The military was interested in mapping caves on a limited scale from the outside (think afghanistan) and developed a sonar style system that used reflected signals and complex math to produce a rough image. obviously there are severe limitations regarding detail and range but supposedly due to the math involved it was much more than a line of sight image. Who knows where they will be in 10 yrs :)

Also, ground penetrating radar has future possibilities as well.

My own fantasy project is miniature floating sonar mappers say the size of softballs that we could dump in an insurgence and collect at the resurgence. collecting data both above and below the waterline! You would probably lose a few or maybe most, but the data they brought out might be pretty interesting!

[Ralph E. Powers]

Actually Ralph technology close to that is in late development. The military was interested in mapping caves on a limited scale from the outside (think Afghanistan) and developed a sonar style system that used reflected signals and complex math to produce a rough image. obviously there are severe limitations regarding detail and range but supposedly due to the math involved it was much more than a line of sight image. Who knows where they will be in 10 yrs :)

Also, ground penetrating radar has future possibilities as well.

My own fantasy project is miniature floating sonar mappers say the size of softballs that we could dump in an insurgence and collect at the resurgence. collecting data both above and below the waterline! You would probably lose a few or maybe most, but the data they brought out might be pretty interesting!

Indeed, it would also help to know if the passages at sumps continually go large enough for human passage. One cave I know of has a recorded depth of -880 and the water runs along the surface of the floor (which happens to be quartzite and through the joint of limestone and the next layer of rock (the quartzite). Dye tracing revealed several days travel with the resurgence popping out 1360 feet lower down the canyon making the total depth of the cave(?) at -2240 the resurgence I believe comes out in limestone. Finding the continuance of this cave would be awesome. Same goes for several others around the country.

[George Dasher]

It turned out we had a datum problem.

Not that I won't have had to "move" the locations once back at the barn...

[Leclused]

Hidden caves can be found with resitivity measuring. A belgian caver had a project about that. And he was able to show
the voids of a cave by measuring more or less resitivity of an electric current.

Just goolge on it an some interesting links will pop-up.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUSMNS21A..05C

Dagobert

[Marbry]

Hidden caves can be found with resitivity measuring. A belgian caver had a project about that. And he was able to show
the voids of a cave by measuring more or less resitivity of an electric current.

Just goolge on it an some interesting links will pop-up.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUSMNS21A..05C

Dagobert

It's been done for a while, but it is a very far cry from waving a $200 handheld device above the ground and getting a 3D rendition of where the cave is seconds later. Just go price a nice gravity meter alone.

You need a digital compass in that camera along with the GPS so it can give you look direction as well.