Missouri Speleological Survey
Files Report for February 2003
To get a little faster feedback, I thought it might be good to post this monthly report on MoCaves as well as put it in Liaison…
The nasty weather hasn’t prevented all good cave work, particularly that sort that involves getting out one’s topos and filling out cave reports…
-James Corsentino sent a new report in on a large Pulaski County cave that he is mapping.
-A landowner from Colorado contacted us and sent in some information on a cave he owns in Pulaski County. We’re trying to track down some more information for him. In the meantime, James Corsentino has agreed to map the cave for him.
-Four new caves in Shannon County came from work that CRF and the NPS are doing on a winter bat census. (You go to one cave and there lurks some more entrances, several in fact.) One of them we had a lead on for some time, and yet it was the least inviting of the lot. One cave had two entrances, the larger measuring 25’ wide by 5’ high, with about 300’ of passage and is less than 150’ from the Current River.
-A location and description of a new cave in Crawford County came from Jeff Crews of Rolla. The cave looks to be a long one and is apparently being mapped.
-A better location for a pit in Greene County came from Ben McCall of OHG. And Ben reports that a new sinkhole in the same county appears to be enterable.
-A location for Daher Pit in St. Louis County came from Rick Haley via Hal Baker.
-Ben Miller sent a location for Gnome Pit in Stone County. Ben has some more caves to send in when he and I get him a new file runtime.
-Marty Griffin sent an update of Laclede County. He also straightened out some nomenclature problems.
-Hal Baker sent in a long list of corrections, questions and problems. I was able to solve some of them right away; others required consultation with folks doing work in those areas. And then some of them remain unsolved for the time being until someone more familiar with the area straightens them out.
-Korey Hart, Tim Harrison, and Jessica Nave of MVG sent three reports and maps of new caves on Pioneer Forest land in a remote area of Shannon County. This is a beautiful area of tens of thousands of acres that are selectively lumbered and generally open for non-motorized recreational use.
-And at the end of the month came a large pile of reports, corrections, and other submissions that I haven’t waded through yet. I’ll report on those next month.
Counties that we really need someone to work on entering and auditing the data include: St. Clair, Henry, Hickory in west central Mozarkia and Marion County in that part of Missouri far north of the Ozarks. (Maybe some Iowa or Illinois cavers would like to work on it.)
Since the beginning of the year we have added over thirty new caves to the files.
Scott House
1606 Luce St.
Cape Girardeau MO 63701
573-651-3782