Articles From The ICS Notebook

The quarterly publication of The Indiana Cave Survey is The Indiana Cave Survey Notebook. From time-to-time, we'll post articles that may be helpful in locating, surveying, recording , or publishing your karst discoveries, as well as articles that you may enjoy reading.

Articles From The ICS Notebook

Last Updated: March 1, 2006

History of the Indiana Cave Symposiums
By Bruce Trotter, ICS President

In light of the upcoming 2003 ICS Symposium, we thought it might be interesting to look back at the first ten years of Indiana Cave Symposium. Dave Black originally conceived the idea for a Symposium in 1992. The purpose was to further communications among cavers and surveyors. The emphasis was to be on exploration, surveying and conservation of caves in Indiana. Dave pitched the idea to the ICS, IKC & HNF Karst Inventory Project. They readily agreed to jointly sponsor it.

There have been a lot of different topics through the years. We’ve had the regulars such as ICS, IKC & HNFP updates, bat counts, cave & mine gating projects. There have been the individual surveying/mapping efforts as well as multi year, large area cave projects. We have also had other biology

cal studies such as fish and bug counts. More focused efforts such as cave diving, temperature monitoring, digging and the general education projects for the general public have also been presented. The range of topics has been impressive.

If you enjoy these various topics and would like to see more, show up for the Eleventh Annual Indiana Cave Symposium on April 26, 2003 at Blue’s Canoe Livery in Taylorsville, Indiana. The pitch in will start at 5:00 PM Indy time and the presentations will start at 7:00 PM. We have another great line up of speakers for your enjoyment. A map is found on page 3 of this newsletter and directions can also be found at: http://www.caves.org/survey/ics/symposium/icsymp.htm

Hope to see you there so that we can continue a great tradition!

Reprinted from the March 2003 (Issue #52) of The Indiana Cave Survey Notebook, © 2003, The Indiana Cave Survey, Inc.

From The Archives
By Bruce Trotter, ICS Archivist

Having been the ICS Archivist since mid 1996, I figured it was about time for a written report. Those of you who have been to any meetings since then will have gotten a copy of Archives Report in table form. It has the numbers and some percentages but I'd like to add a little more.

There was a little over 900 caves / folders in the Archives in 1996. Today we have over 1850 caves / folders. With over 2800 known caves in the state, it puts us at having information on about 66% of the caves in the state. Some of those folders only contain a single sheet of paper. Ideally, we should have a complete report form, topo dot, map and photo of each entrance. It would also be great to have the survey notes and a resources inventory. As you can see, we have plenty of work left to do.

Dave Everton secured 2 filing cabinets and delivered them to the September meeting. They have been painted beige to match the other one. We now have 3 filing cabinets with a total of 13 drawers. There are 6 drawers containing the 1850 folders. The other drawers contain such things as various indexes and printouts from the old flat files, biscuit database, Foxpro and other lists. We also have such things as records, floppies, newsletters, guidebooks, HNFP stuff. The cabinets have some extra space and will probably last another few years before filling up.

I'd like to encourage all to keep turning in report forms and data. If your looking for any info on a cave, feel free to e-mail or call me. I'd be glad to help out. I would also like to invite all of you to come and check out the Archives for yourself.

Name That Cave!
By John Danovich, Editor

This article is the first of what I hope will be a series of articles in the newsletter to provide some history of Indiana caves by getting the scuttlebutt on the name. I’ll state up front that this plagiarized idea came from Andy Zellner’s “Who Named That Cave, Anyway?” article in the Georgia Underground, Volume 36, Number 1.

As I read Andy’s article, I thought that it would be informative, let alone fun, to discover how the numerous caves of Indiana got their individual names. The cave name history submitted to the ICS Notebook would certainly supplement the data found in the ICS files. That’s one of our group’s goals – to gather all the information we can that pertains to Indiana’s karst features.

Back in the late 70s and most of the 80s, I was in one of the few groups that actively looked for new caves in the state. Because we found quite a few I have some first-hand information on naming caves and their features. Below I list a couple of the caves and my recollection of how they, and some cave features, were named. If you disagree with some of the details then send me your version. There are likely to be a few variations in stories of how a cave, passage or feature got its name. That’s OK. Rumors and second or third-hand stories are still informative and likely entertaining. The only thing I ask is that you provide an accurate depiction of what you know or heard and don’t send info that you recognize as false.

Bear Plunge – Originally Tom Fritsch called this the 210-foot pit. Two hundred and ten feet was the result of a calculation Tom performed on the time lapse (7 to 8 seconds) a small rock would take to hit the bottom. What we didn’t know was that the rock was rolling slowly (and silently) down a sloping muddy ledge just below the entrance before it dropped vertically. This increased the apparent rock fall time and therefore our estimates of the pit’s depth. After enlarging the entrance so that people could enter, the ledge could be seen. The pit turned out to be 90 feet deep, quite a nice drop although not 210 feet. More important was the complete bear skeleton off to the side of the main drop. Notably, many of the bones were sitting on their own individual pedestal of mud about 2.5 to 4 inches high. The skeleton was under a dripping dome. The water splashed on the bones and eroded the mud around but not underneath them. Garre Conner liked a combination of Spanish and Latin words which meant “Bear Pit” and used the name for a month or two, but the other explorers overruled Garre because the Latin name was harder to pronounce and spell than its English equivalent.

Paradise Lost – The cave entrance climbdown of 11 feet had to be excavated. A vertical crack was widened. The Shish Kabob Rock Pit was reached after digging through a shale layer. The pit was so named for a projection that protruded 1.5 feet from the wall and was positioned almost in the middle of the 23-foot pit. This “feature” had a fluted top edge like a serrated knife and came to a pinnacle with a skewering point that taunted us the first few times we negotiated the pit while free climbing. On one of my climbs back up this drop I put too much weight on a souvenir handhold that gave way (that’s why it’s called a souvenir handhold), I fell 10 or so feet and landed on the Shish Kabob Rock. Luckily my right leg straddled the fluted edge and the point missed the family jewels by only a few inches (note that the pit now has a bolt for rigging a rope). After discovering the large room we had a few discussions on the name. Before visiting the cave Kevin Komisarcik suggested “Paradise Lost” from the descriptions. We liked it!

GPS Notes
By David Black, ICS President

When reporting cave and karst locations, the datum is important. The official ICS datum is North American Continental 1927 (CONUS 27). This datum is used because it is the datum used on USGS 7½ minute topographic maps.

Before GPS no one paid much attention to datums; everybody just scaled off the topographic map. With the use of GPS the different datums can make a difference. The GPS default datum is World Grid System 1984 (WGS 84). The difference between the two datums when using latitude and longitude is less than 10 feet. For ICS use this will not really matter.

The problem comes in when using the UTM system, where the difference between the two datums is about 600 feet. This error has to do with converting a round globe into a flat grid system.

Luckily, most GPS units allows the user to change datums. So when using GPS for the ICS, please set the datum to CONUS 27. If your GPS does not allow CONUS 27 datum there are computer software programs that can do this type of conversion. The required copy of the topographic map with a dot location can also help in catching this kind of datum error.

ICS Locator Template
By David Black, ICS President

The ICS Locator has the three locating systems (UTM, Lat-Long, and Range-Township-Section) used by the ICS. It is in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. To be used, this template should be printed onto an overhead transparency film and laminated. Lamination is needed because the printing will flake off when used without the lamination. Upon request, David Black will print the template. It will not have any of the distortions caused by photocopying. The current cost is $5.00.

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