The short answer—Why not?

The thoughtful answer—Because caves are more important than ever in today’s world.

The scientific answer—Because cave science (speleology) is a relatively new field
offering unlimited research opportunities.

What is “Research” anyway? Webster says it’s “…careful, systematic, patient study
and investigation in some field of knowledge, undertaken to discover or establish facts
or principles.” Now THAT covers a lot!

You may feel that “research” is far beyond your capabilities, but where caves are
concerned, there is a fine line between “documenting” caves and doing cave “research.”
Simply put, documenting caves means describing caves and the features they contain in
words, pictures, and drawings. Research goes further to try to explain how and why
what you have documented got that way.

Notice it does not say that you must be a scientist to do research. Of course, if you plan
to do serious research in, say, the biological or geological sciences, you’ll need
appropriate academic and experience credentials in order to have any credibility with
professionals in the field of study. But even the most qualified researchers must start
SOMEWHERE, so press on, follow your dreams, and build your credibility one step at a
time.

So how do you “break into” research? Actually, the opportunities are endless. Think
of it this way: EMTs help doctors, paralegals help lawyers, and cavers help scientists
and historians do professional-grade research. After a while, when you have earned
degrees and gained experience, you can do your own research and recruit your own
helpers. There are so many things to do! Many have helped Dr. David Ashley in his
biological studies in various caves, generations of cavers helped the late Dr. Ken
Thomson do mapping and dye tracing, and who hasn’t been inspired by the restoration
work pioneered by Jon Beard? Look around—chances are you’ll find someone who is
doing work that fascinates you, and chances are that person needs some help—your
opportunity to learn by doing, the best way to gain the experience and expertise you need.

Caving and research are intertwined as no other activities I can think of. Consider the
early days of exploring Carroll Cave. On one camp-in-the-cave trip, we set up base
camp in a placed called the Lunch Room. Caver Bob Starks put his sleeping bag down in
what he thought was a nice, smooth place, but when he got in the bag, he felt a rock.
That “rock” turned out to be part of the skull of an Ice Age animal called a Dire Wolf.
Dr. Oscar (Oz) Hawksley, a biologist, identified the bone and later did an excavation and
wrote a research paper that was the forerunner of a long series of paleontological studies
in Missouri caves. Exploring in Carroll turned up a case of underground stream piracy
in which Thunder River pirated Carroll River. That discovery led to dye tracing
research, which led to geomorphological studies, which led to sedimentological research,
and so on and on. Now, half a century later, Carroll is being re-explored and seen by
new eyes, leading to new research never imagined by the first explorers.

Research in cave history is also a challenging field of study, especially in Missouri,
where the relationships between caves and people are so fascinating and highly varied.
After all, what other state can boast of so many outlaws who were—so it’s said—such
active cavers? The history is there—all one has to do is “discover or establish facts,”
and it only requires “careful, systematic, patient study and investigation.”

When I was a young caver studying to become a geologist (here it comes—the old story,
“You had to walk 2 miles to the cave, and it was uphill both ways…”), there were no
academic speleologists and very few respected professional speleologists to serve as role
models. Moreover, there weren’t that many known caves to study—less than 500 in
Missouri—but today we have over 6,200 recorded caves with roughly half of them
mapped. Speleology is being taught in many universities, and there are “supercavers” to
serve as role models. Federal and state agencies employ cave experts, offering jobs to
students who pursue careers in speleology. The same can be said of the private sector,
where people with expertise in caves are in demand. And consider the wealth of data
that has been produced over the past 50+ years, primarily by cavers who have accepted
the challenge of documenting caves.

When my contemporaries and I tackled Carroll Cave in 1956, we had only carbide lamps
and home-made helmets. We had zero rope skills and our ladders were made of hemp
rope with oak slats for rungs (when those suckers got wet, they weighed a ton…). Our
mapping compasses were Army surplus units. Worse, most of the topog maps available
to us were 15-minute maps at a scale of one inch to the mile.

Now, when you research caves you have a bewildering choice of lighting units,
compasses and laser distance measurers designed for caving, wet suits for cold, wet water
crawls, and an amazing variety of other equipment. Cameras? Well, the new, rapidly
changing world of digital photography is not only amazing, but less bulky and more
rugged than the heavy, sensitive mechanical cameras of the past. Vertical technology?
Name your device, and it’s available. Maps? Topog maps are light years ahead of
what used to be available, and GPS technology makes it easy not only to obtain precise
locations, but also to find otherwise hard-to-find locations. And did I mention the
Internet? All kinds of maps and space imagery are available, only key-strokes away.
Just measuring the “vital signs” of caves—temps, airflow, water quality parameters, etc.
—is immeasurably easier, thanks to instruments developed for environmental monitoring
and adapted to caves.

So why not research caves? There are plenty of them, they’re full of fascinating things,
you have high-tech tools to use, you can get the training you need, and your efforts will
be appreciated. Best of all, you’ll find a much wider audience of folks who will be
interested in what you’ve learned underground, and agencies who will be able to put your
studies to work in protecting the environment. Cave owners in the 21st century are
likely to be more sophisticated than the “Joe Farmers” of the past, and more likely to
encourage and support your work if they know it will be helpful to them.

Research can help build bridges to landowners, and we all know that without the good
will between cavers and cave owners, caving as we know it simply would not continue.
For example, helping landowners understand the natural drainage patterns beneath their
land can lead to better land stewardship, and maybe—just maybe—counter the urge to
throw trash in sinkholes, to mention just one positive outcome. Landowners also need to
know about cave life in all its marvelous forms, because knowing about it and learning to
appreciate it may lead to better surface land use practices that protect cave life. Research
can help promote win/win situations, and that is good for all of us!

Did I mention the adrenaline rush that comes with making new discoveries and revealing
new facts? It’s very much like the feeling you get when you first enter a virgin cave
passage, where no living person has been before. When you’ve done “careful,
systematic, patient studies” and discovered something new about caves, it becomes a
source of great pride. You can then say, "I’ve done something no one before me has
ever done, and the world will be a better, more interesting place because of what I did."

There’s a familiar saying, “Caves are the last frontier.” One of the hottest areas for
biological research involves so-called “extremeophiles,” organisms that live in extreme
environments such as caves. The reason why “extremeophiles” are cutting-edge
research is because of the eternal human drive for exploring space. People wonder
whether life might exist on other planets, in some form of cave.

Closer to home, there are unlimited opportunities for researching caves. Why? Because
of population growth, more and more people are affected by caves and karst processes.
In the Springfield area alone, sinkhole collapses during just the past year have swallowed
a house and garage—with a car inside—and contaminated a popular cave in a public
park. But you ask, “Hasn’t everything people need to know already been done?” NO,
NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO! Research is NEVER done [complete]. On the
contrary, research almost always leads to more questions, so knowledge increases in the
positive direction.

Well-known supercaver Bill Stone is a case in point. He began as an ordinary caver,
polished his skills, became a cave diver so he could push deep, complex systems in
Mexico, and invented a rebreathing device for cave divers that opens systems that
otherwise would be unexplorable. Now he’s looking toward someday going to the Moon
and/or the planet Mars, to research caves!





  
                         Kasi Johnson testing cave stream water.              Eric Hertzler and Waylon Cavinder doing a stream biology transect study.
                  
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