Missouri Speleological Survey

Files Report for July and August 2004

Steve Taylor had located several new caves in Cooper County, nearly increasing the total caves there by 50%. All of these are in bluffs along the Missouri River, conspicuously close to the railroad tracks. Let’s see, I think Steve works for the railroad, eh? Now that would be fun – locating caves from the engine. Now Steve needs to name all of these so we can enter them in the files, wouldn’t want to have Trackside Caves #’s 1-6.

Michael Carter noted that maps of Buddys Cave and Arnold Cave in Ste Gen county were pretty much identical. This led to the realization that neither of the locations for the above caves were in the right place which added to the confusion. Aaron Addison supplied us with a better location for the one cave, which will continue to be called Buddys Cave with Arnold as a secondary name. Michael Carter and Jim Vandike cleared up a duplicate cave problem in Ozark County: there is only one cave instead of the two that we used to have littering the files. This is a constant problem, one that we are slowly eradicating by carefully checking every new cave submitted and “auditing” any other data. Michael also sent a file with a variety of updated Forest Service files from Christian County.

Conor Watkins sent photos and video of a Forest Service cave near Rolla that CRF is inventorying. The cave was once used as a seismological station and has been more-or-less abandoned and forgotten. This could make for a fine restoration project.

Wade Baker sent good information on Long Cave in McDonald County: better locations for the two entrances, entrance photos, and description. Nice work.

Dan Lamping sent information on Watson Spring Cave in Shannon County. The cave is about 140ft long; Dan and Matt Platter have surveyed it. Now here is a cave that I had heard existed for many years, it is marked as a spring on the topo, and a grotto (years ago) said they were going to map it and turn a location in. Difference is, Dan actually did it. And Dan gets a prize for having turned in the location for a new entrance to a large cave in Camden County. Yes, that one. No one had previously bothered reporting it to the files. Lastly, Dan turned in a new cave location elsewhere in Shannon County, relatively close to a well-known cave.

Tom Panion pointed out that of the caves he turned in at MVOR, most were actually located by Tim Harrison and a few others. I think I knew this, just forgot to give credit in the correct direction.

James Corsentino sent in a location of another “new” cave in Pulaski County. However, several old/poor locations exist near there. More field and files work will be necessary to tell if this new cave is “new” or “old”.

Matt Goska sent a GPS location for a cave recently found in Pulaski County. And Matt sent along an improved location for a cave that has been in the files for some years. As is usual, all we used to have was a public land location, now we have a good, accurate location.

Ben Miller sent in locations for yet another two new caves way down in southern Stone County. This continues the fine work going on down there.

Spike Crews sent updates on the length of a couple of caves in Pulaski County.

Marty Griffin sent some information on caves he apparently turned in many years ago yet somehow never made it into the database. Since then, he and others that were there have forgotten the exact location. Now these confirmed caves have to be leads until Marty goes back out and relocates them. No rest for the weary.

Bill Elliott of MDC sent information, including locations, of several caves, at least one of which is apparently new, along Sinking Creek in Shannon County. Bill also sent reports and improved locations for a couple of caves in McDonald County.

A while back Joel Laws sent some location data from Dent County. Someone really needs to work this county over, not in terms of survey, just in terms of fixing a few duplications and funny locations. Joel tried to do this with just one topo, having some success and writes “It looks like some field checking is in order. Not just to check out the springs, it looks like some of the locations may be slightly off and out in the creek's flood plain.”

And I probably forgot to mention this previously as I just now integrated it, but Don Dunham made a major contribution by typing all of the Dent County reports into the FileMaker database. This was a lot of work and fills a very large gap.

Don and I spent a productive day down in the southern end of the Riverways last week, mapping two known features and finding five new ones – most of which were bigger than the known entities. People may find it hard to believe that there are unreported caves with entrances 40-50 ft wide less than 500ft from the Current River, but there are. And this is a result of looking in August. Imagine what you can find in January.

Mick Sutton continues to send in new locations, reports, and Topo files.

The BATL member who turned in a new cave in Barry County was Brad Davis, who hopes to return to map the cave.

By the way, the best way to communicate with me is by email as I am frequently on the road. Trusting communications to voice mail (and I have four phone numbers) has proved not to be reliable. Thanks!

Scott House

Missouri Cave Database

1606 Luce St.

Cape Girardeau MO 63701

573-651-3782

scott_house@semo.net