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Hello everyone!
I pleased to invite you to the official site of Central Asian Karstic-Speleological commission ("Kaspeko")
There, we regularly publish reports about our expeditions, articles and reports on speleotopics, lecture course for instructors, photos etc. ...
Dear Colleagues, This is to draw your attention to several recent publications added to KarstBase, relevant to hypogenic karst/speleogenesis: Corrosion of limestone tablets in sulfidic ground-water: measurements and speleogenetic implications Galdenzi,
A recent publication of Spanish researchers describes the biology of Krubera Cave, including the deepest terrestrial animal ever found:
Jordana, Rafael; Baquero, Enrique; Reboleira, Sofía and Sendra, Alberto. ...
Exhibition dedicated to caves is taking place in the Vienna Natural History Museum
The exhibition at the Natural History Museum presents the surprising variety of caves and cave formations such as stalactites and various crystals. ...
Did you know?
That pit is a deep hole, generally circular in outline, having vertical or nearly vertical walls [10]. see also jama; pothole (definition 2); shaft.?
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KarstBase a bibliography database in karst and cave science.
Featured articles from Cave & Karst Science Journals
The author examines two specimens of Nicoletia texensis Ulrich from the Quintero caves, Tamaulipas (Mexico). Among the most important characteristics of this species the exaggerated lengthening of the legs, cerci, antennae and other appendages has to be mentioned. Among Diplura, nearly the same degree of lengtheneing of the appendages may be observed in Plusiocampa dargilani (Moniez), a troglobitic Campodeidae of France. The structure of the median claw, completely different form other Nicoletia, probably will allow the institution of a new Genus for N. texensis.
The author examines two specimens of Nicoletia texensis Ulrich from the Quintero caves, Tamaulipas (Mexico). Among the most important characteristics of this species the exaggerated lengthening of the legs, cerci, antennae and other appendages has to be mentioned. Among Diplura, nearly the same degree of lengtheneing of the appendages may be observed in Plusiocampa dargilani (Moniez), a troglobitic Campodeidae of France. The structure of the median claw, completely different form other Nicoletia, probably will allow the institution of a new Genus for N. texensis.
Several methods for permanently marking cavernicolous crayfishes were investigated prior to initiation of field work in Pless Cave, Lawrence County, Indiana. Internally injected ink complemented with external "painting" proved to be a most satisfactory tagging procedure. During the two-year study period 211 individuals of the troglobitic crayfish Orconectes inermis inermis Cope were marked; 96 tagged individuals were recaptured at least once, a 46% recapture rate. The population size was estimated to be 1586 +/- 79 (95 % C.L.) over the 540 m subterranean stream study area and remained relatively stable during the period of 1970 to 1972. The home range of male crayfishes is as high as 20 m and extends up to 23 m for females, although maximum distances travelled by individuals of both sexes greatly exceed these values. Small individuals of both sexes are displaced downstream whereas larger crayfish show distinct upstream movement. If all movement data are pooled, both sexes exhibit a net downstream movement. The downstream movement of crayfish is heavily influenced by flooding.
The fossils from Wellington Caves, some of them 'giant', are well known to Australian speleologists, finds of importance for the study of Australian fauna from early discovered caves. What I think we did not appreciate was that the Wellington 'bones' have a place in the world history of science of significance also, the theme of this paper. Many of you will have watched the BBC-TV series on 'The Voyage of the Beagle'; much was made of the importance to Darwin in developing his theory of evolution of the fossils he found in southern South America. There fossils of giant relatives of sloths, llamas and armadillos helped to make clear to him the notion of the geological succession of life, a basic part of his theory along with the idea of natural selection to which the finches and the tortoises of the Galapagos Islands proved crucial. However it seems that Darwin was previously aware of the similar significance of the Wellington Caves bones for the law of succession from Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology which quotes William Clift's identifications of dasyures, wombats and kangaroos amongst them. The fact that these recently extinct animals were closely related to the distinctive modern marsupial fauna of Australia counted much against earlier conceptions such as Cuvier's catastrophic theory or Buckland's ideas of successive divine creations within a short time span. Watchers of the TV series will remember the devious role played by the palaeontologist, Sir Richard Owen, in organising public opposition to Darwin at the famous Oxford meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. This article relates the series of rearguard actions of Owen to maintain that there was a fossil elephant component in the ancient Australian fauna, damaging to Darwinism. But the growing evidence from Australia, not all of it from caves, of course, finally extinguished this red herring, started by that doctrinaire N.S.W. colonial, the Reverend John Dunmore Lang.
