Spelunkers Explore Crystalline Cave In New Mexico 99
onehitwonder writes "New Mexico cavers have set foot — for the first time ever — on a 'river' of tiny, white calcite crystals covering a four-mile stretch of the floor of the Fort Stanton Cave in New Mexico. The privileged few spelunkers who have explored the 'Snowy River' formation say they've seen nothing like it. Not only is Snowy River exquisite, it is also home to some three dozen species of microbes previously unknown to man."
Not spelunkers but cavers (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not spelunkers but cavers (Score:4, Informative)
Main Entry: spelunker Listen to the pronunciation of spelunker Pronunciation: \spi-l-kr, sp-\ Function: noun Etymology: Latin spelunca cave, from Greek splynx; akin to Greek splaion cave Date: 1942 : one who makes a hobby of exploring and studying caves
Re:Protect the cave system (Score:1, Informative)
And each one we send will cost $100 million+. If you want to be a daredevil and pointlessly get yourself killed then go right ahead but do it on YOUR dime not societies. I'll support sending the guy who'll get the job that he was sent there for done instead of going on an ego or adrenaline trip.
Real Full Headline (Score:5, Informative)
"Spelunkers Explore Crystalline Cave in New Mexico; A Hollow Voice Says 'plugh'."
Re: Why not send light-weight robots? (Score:5, Informative)
"Why not send light-weight robots that have been disinfected? It's not like we don't have the technology.
You obviously aren't a caver, and have never been deep in a "wild" cave.
Perhaps you think that caves have BIG "Hollywood" entrances, and have floors that are boulevard flat, and perhaps there is a little "ambient" light like in caves in the movies.
I can safely say that there is currently no robot in existence that can fully navigate most caves (worth exploring) on the planet.
Perhaps small portions of a few, but not deep into them.
I've been exploring in caves where I'm literally two hours from the entrance, and a 150 foot climb up a rope to exit the cave, yet I'll squeeze through a body tight hole just to see where it "goes".
So I'll exhale and push forward an inch, and then do it again, and repeat until I'm through.
And then after exploring around I have to come back through, but a robot would have been stopped by this "tight spot".
Cavers sometimes need to "move rocks" to progress down the (hopefully virgin) cave passage, and I can't see any cave navigable robot being able to move a 100 pound rock, let alone the hundreds of pounds of rock like I've moved many times in less sensitive caves.
Many "serious" caves require a rope drop of a hundred feet or more to enter, and a climb to exit, and how many robots can do that?
Oh, none.
Now lets talk energy... it takes a great deal of energy to navigate a cave environment, and unless you have a looong extension cord no robot is going very far into any wild cave.
And nobody is going to carry a heavy robot deep into a cave so it can "scoop booty"... no way.
It may be decades before humans are replaced as cave explorers on Earth.
Mars is a different story, and all the caves targeted have huge Hollywood entrances, and the "robots" likely won't be entering very far into them at all.
And "big up" to Jim Goodbar, he took us deeeep into Cottonwood 20 years ago.
Re:Protect the cave system (Score:3, Informative)
Because putting a human geologist on mars for a month would cost several orders of magnitude more than having spirit and opportunity there for years ?
A human would need water,air,food,waste-management for the duration of the entire mission. And he'd need a method of -returning- from mars (suicide-mission would be politically unfeasible), which makes the entire thing a LOT more complicated than it is sending a robot.
Yes. A geologist with adequate equipment is MUCH more effective and versatile than one of these robots. But putting one there would also be MUCH more expensive, so it would be unlikely to actually make economical sense in the near future.
Re:Protect the cave system (Score:3, Informative)
The "crystal" in this cave isn't super-exquisite, fragile crystal glass. It's not the Fortress of Solitude or anything. It's just white calcite. There's calcite all over caves all over the world. The stuff is essentially rock.
The distinguishing features here are that there's so much of it on the floor, as opposed to the wall and ceiling, and that it was mostly unadulterated by sediment during its formation and is therefore a snowy white instead of brown.
The stuff isn't exactly fragile. Bacteria from shoes aren't going to ruin it, but hundreds or thousands of feet walking upon it will physically erode it.