Thrill, Discovery, Protecting a Hidden Realm -Cave Dwellers

[Cheryl Jones]

Cave Dwellers
Speleological Surveyors Descend Into Unmapped Darkness For Thrill and Discovery and to Protect a Hidden Realm

By Delphine Schrank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 31, 2007; Page B01

........To explorers who map caves, the final frontier lies beneath. Shielded from the scorch of summer, theirs is a paradise of damp and darkness visible, where crystals are sometimes so fragile they dissolve at a whisper. Here is a realm where touch eclipses sight. Blind and free of pigment, its creatures -- from pseudoscorpions to foot-long salamanders -- compensate with vibration sensors on limbs or behind their heads.

Do not call these explorers spelunkers. Spelunkers are novices. Speleological surveyors -- or project cavers, as they call themselves -- work nine-to-five all week so they can crawl into caverns on weekends, collecting data for their caving clubs. They devote hours, months, sometimes years to the underground, measuring inclinations and examining muddy rock faces for new species or paleontological finds. Part conservationists, they are the sworn guardians of the underworld.

"A cave's one of the few things left that you can find and be the first one into," said Baer, 44, who sets tiles by day. "No one's seen it. No one's touched it. No one even knew it existed."
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Read on! http://tinyurl.com/38whuk You might recognize many of the NSS members mentioned.