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rlboyce wrote:It would be interesting to see the percentage of karst topography for each county and how that compares with your data. Another interesting metric would be to compare average cave length per county.
Caving Guru wrote:So I have made a spreadsheet for each state that I have the total number of caves for each county. I have posted below the spreadsheets for West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. I also have as an added bonus, a spreadsheet showing the difference between the number of caves in Virginia by county in 1964 and in 2004.
So to summarize what I have so far:
1. White County, TN has the highest cave density with 3.09 caves per square mile.
2. Van Buren County, TN has the 2nd highest cave density with 3.03 caves per square mile.
3. Jackson County, AL has the 3rd highest cave density with 1.70 caves per square mile.
4. Putnam County, TN has the 4th highest cave density with 1.43 caves per square mile.
5. Greenbrier County, WV has the 5th highest cave density with 1.34 caves per square mile.
6. Fentress County, TN has the 6th highest cave density with 1.31 caves per square mile.
7. Overton County, TN has the 7th highest cave density with 1.30 caves per square mile.
8. Marion County, TN has the 8th highest cave density with 1.29 caves per square mile.
9. Warren County, TN has the 9th highest cave density with 1.14 caves per square mile.
10. Pickett County, TN has the 10th highest cave density with 1.07 caves per square mile.
If anyone would like to share the total number of caves for each county for any of the states that I have not mentioned so far, please do so I can calculate more county cave densities.
Extremeophile wrote:I'm not sure it's possible to do an apples to apples comparison, even if the state survey criteria were the same. There may be fewer caves per square mile in a place like Edmonson county, KY, but probably more miles of cave per square mile. The cave density has dropped as cave systems have been connected. Other places like Custer county, SD have relatively few entrances, and lots of miles of cave, but the geology is entirely different from TAG.
Lava wrote:This is very interesting, and very pertinent to a comparison I have been attempting to make recently. It looks like TN is the most limestone cave-dense state with 10k caves in 42k square miles. I just recently got back from Slovenia, and was wondering how it compared. Well, Slovenia has 11k caves in just 8k square miles! I'm wondering if there is anywhere else on earth with a greater density of caves than that? I guess it all changes as you narrow the search area. There may be small regions within TN with a similar cave density?
trogman wrote:Caving Guru wrote:So I have made a spreadsheet for each state that I have the total number of caves for each county. I have posted below the spreadsheets for West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. I also have as an added bonus, a spreadsheet showing the difference between the number of caves in Virginia by county in 1964 and in 2004.
So to summarize what I have so far:
1. White County, TN has the highest cave density with 3.09 caves per square mile.
2. Van Buren County, TN has the 2nd highest cave density with 3.03 caves per square mile.
3. Jackson County, AL has the 3rd highest cave density with 1.70 caves per square mile.
4. Putnam County, TN has the 4th highest cave density with 1.43 caves per square mile.
5. Greenbrier County, WV has the 5th highest cave density with 1.34 caves per square mile.
6. Fentress County, TN has the 6th highest cave density with 1.31 caves per square mile.
7. Overton County, TN has the 7th highest cave density with 1.30 caves per square mile.
8. Marion County, TN has the 8th highest cave density with 1.29 caves per square mile.
9. Warren County, TN has the 9th highest cave density with 1.14 caves per square mile.
10. Pickett County, TN has the 10th highest cave density with 1.07 caves per square mile.
If anyone would like to share the total number of caves for each county for any of the states that I have not mentioned so far, please do so I can calculate more county cave densities.
I may be accused of beating a dead horse here, since this has been discussed previously, but here goes: Since TN recognizes 30' pits as caves, whereas AL does not, is this really a "fair" comparison? If all of the pits less than 50' deep were omitted from the TN list, how would it compare to AL? Since I am not a TCS member, I don't have access to their data. Since we are comparing numbers here, it seems like we should compare apples to apples.
Trogman
trogman wrote:Extremeophile wrote:I'm not sure it's possible to do an apples to apples comparison, even if the state survey criteria were the same. There may be fewer caves per square mile in a place like Edmonson county, KY, but probably more miles of cave per square mile. The cave density has dropped as cave systems have been connected. Other places like Custer county, SD have relatively few entrances, and lots of miles of cave, but the geology is entirely different from TAG.
You make some good points, Derek. Also, when I gave Greg the number of caves per sq. mile in Jackson County, AL, I filtered out all but the primary entrance (E1). If cave entrances were counted, the number would be a bit higher. I'm not sure if that's how he did it with the other states listed. It'd be no trouble to go back and re-calculate, though.
Trogman
Extremeophile wrote:I'm not sure it's possible to do an apples to apples comparison, even if the state survey criteria were the same. There may be fewer caves per square mile in a place like Edmonson county, KY, but probably more miles of cave per square mile. The cave density has dropped as cave systems have been connected. Other places like Custer county, SD have relatively few entrances, and lots of miles of cave, but the geology is entirely different from TAG.
LukeM wrote:A miles of passage per square mile metric would be useful to compare areas that contain lots of horizontal cave.
Caving Guru wrote:In my opinion, the cave density shows how likely you are to randomly find a cave, say if you are ridge walking in an area that you are unfamiliar with.
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