Meeting Minutes February 2024

Cascade Grotto Meeting
Hybrid meeting (Phinney Neighborhood Association and Google Meet)
Wednesday February 7, 2024

Votes

Allocate $100 for room rental per year

Eric proposed, Sarah seconded

  • 10 for
  • none against

Allocate $70 for a Bluetooth microphone

Eric proposed, Sarah seconded

  • 10 for
  • none against

Presentation

Sulfur cycling and Speleogensis: cave formation in the midwest

Slides

Karst

  • Karst is rock dissolved by water, punched through creating caves
  • gypsum and salt vs limestone form differently
  • Cave types
    • not all caves are in karst (e.g. volcanic terrain)
    • glacial volcanic caves are caves within glacier/ice
    • limestone (solutional) caves
    • mammoth cave vs carlsbad cavern caverns
    • epigenetic, i.e. top-down (water disolving from up top)
      • big rivers going through
    • hypogene caves i.e. down-up (dissolving coming from beneath)
      • often very dry with lots of gypsum development

Background

  • Indiana lots of classic karst terrain
    • both epigenetic and hypogene caves
    • examination of Mitchell plateau
  • Past work
    • Art Palmer did his phd in 1967 with mapping blue spring caverns
    • Noel Krothe looked at water chemistry in the same area
      • isotope (# of neutrons) of atom causes different behavior with water interaction
    • different weights of compounds showed it was possible to determine what proportion of water was from atomspheric vs non-atmospheric sources (or other acquifers)
    • used work from lee & krothe (2003), simplifying models
  • Speleogensis
    • carbonic acid (generally epigene)
      • CO2 dissolves rock
    • sulfuric acid (generally hypogene)
      • requires less acid
      • results in gypsum
    • speleogensis is a key component of carbon cycle on earth

Research

  • Examination of sources of carbon
    • not heavier
    • unusual lighter source (organic source)
    • origin is petroleum seeps in caves
      • bacteria consume oil in seep
        • gives caustic acid to cave water
  • Blue spring cavern
    • discovered gypsum
    • rare because it is water-soluble in a very wet cave
    • depending on season (wet vs dry) lots of carbon sourced meteoric (sky) vs seeps
      • adds complexity to what we thought was already explained for generation of cave
  • Speleogeneis con’td
    • fracking has changed how speleologensis functions as oil has been pumped out
      • lots of similar behavior in KY and TN
    • spelungers cave also has lots of sulfur/petroleum seeps

Questions

  • Do trees have an effect on limestone?
    • trees breathing out carbon can “drill effect” as they dig into limestone
      • often seen in FL
  • How big of a component is this for global carbon cycle?
    • geological reservoir of carbon is largest on earth
    • it is very slow (geologic time scale) vs anthropogenic
    • generally is net-neutral except for plate subduction (where volcanic behavior releases carbon)

Papers

  • Burgess, S.A., Branam, T.D, Florea L.J. 2023. Divergent geochemical pathways of carbonate aquifer evolution in a classic karst terrain: (2) groundwater source delineation using regional water chemistry data. Water.
  • Burgess, S.A., Florea L.J.. Branam, T.D. 2023. Divergent geochemical pathways of carbonate aquifer evolution in a classic karst terrain: (1) polygenetic cave development identified using longitudinal groundwater geochemistry. Water.

General meeting

Trip Reports

Aidan & others: AZ

  • 3 or 4 vertical pitches in cave
  • all carbonate
  • very hot cave
  • cave slide!

Alex & others: Dead horse

  • this weekend on Sunday
  • lots of people! (and new cavers!)
  • went through rat hole
  • first official grotto trip of the year

Eric & others: digging at Helens

  • end up not being super successful
  • recruited CA cavers
  • pulled out one large boulder (in a sketchy way)

Sarah & others: digging @ Jackman creek

  • lots of new people digging!
  • dog ran into cave and was sad being in small cave
  • made cave 5 ft longer!

Bram & others: fracture cave survey

  • did some sketching
  • survey 160 ft of passage

Sarah & others, WA DNR: bat counts @ Helens/Adams

  • did a number of bat hibernaculum counts

Aidan & others: Horne lake, BC

  • met people from the film Subterranian

Lee: FL

  • mapped old turtle cave, added 500 ft

Dusty: high school cave

  • checked it out
  • also hiked around for other caves

Announcements

  • next Friday (2/16) Oregon grotto meeting in Vancouver WA
    • meeting will also be hybrid (virtual option if people want to drop by)
  • Cascade grotto now has a consistent meeting time (1st Wednesday of every month)
    • meeting schedule is on website
  • planned official trip for every month!
    • check out the calendar on the website
    • there will be a google calendar soon
    • if people tell us planned events, we can add things to the calendar
  • Church cave trip in March
    • reach out to Aidan
  • First weekend in March, Papoose trip
    • 6 hour drive from Seattle (in Idaho)
    • vertical required
    • 2 mile snowshoe
    • really good cave
    • reach out to Eric
  • Second weekend March survey trip
    • reach out to Lee
    • depends on weather situation
  • Wolf cave in March
    • reach out to Dusty
  • Oregon caves national monument (southern OR)
    • reach out to Sarah

Business meeting

Rescue committee

  • Patryk: Skamania county sheriffs office search & rescue
    • unable to speak to missions in past
    • mostly hasty missions
    • unaware of recent incidents but wish to open channel of communication
    • requesting maps of areas/locations
    • looking to share resources
    • can join our “beginner trip” in Helens area as orientation
  • Why?
    • in event of disaster important to have a plan to execute
    • partners can reach out to us because we are the experts in caves
    • dusty has lots of experience with cave rescue
      • caving since 1995
        • has lead lots of training in CA and USA
    • higher consequence caves: vertical caves
      • lewis river horse camp (6 caves)
      • dynamited cave (by trout lake) – high consequence
        • woman fell off ladder by entrance
      • there has been no organized rescue
      • cave ridge
        • lots of non-familiar people visit
        • high-risk areas
    • local cave rescue organizations
      • volcano rescue team goes into ape cave often
        • lots of hikers get lost/injured
      • very high visitation
      • john punches (NCRC rep) has some information
        • template available that we can fill in on incident command
      • can be very different from other SAR organizations
  • Information resources
    • Mark Garnick starting WACKS
      • looking to make centralized location for all cave location/map data
      • SAR could be an important partner
  • Action items:
    • coordinate with john punches
    • need someone to lead/coordinate (rescue secretary)
      • will coordinate next meeting
    • working group created
      • generate call-out list, etc
    • SAR organizations would likely appreciate list of cavers to reach out to/act as consultants

Compensation/thank you gifts for trip leaders

  • small gifts for people who aid the grotto
    • could be grotto swag
    • could be compensating for gas money, etc
  • tabled until next meeting for further discussion

Newsletter trip reports

  • Garrett needs assistance getting trip reports from Facebook
    • Bram will copy trip reports from Facebook to Discord

Votes

Votes summarized above

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