Missouri Speleological Survey

Files Report for May and June 2004

A busy MVOR and a busy MSS meeting provided lots of material from lots of people, some of whom I am about to overlook. So much material has come in that I got way behind (again!) but am now getting caught up. I finally entered new caves in McDonald County (from Paul Woods) that Paul sent several months ago. As a result, McDonald now has over 100 caves in it.

Tom Panion turned in a whole pile of cave locations, mostly from Pioneer Forest land in Shannon County. Actually there were some 22 exact locations, some of which don’t have final names yet, most of them weren’t already in the files. This is a major contribution of data for this area.

Wade Baker sent a GPS location for Jones Pit in Dade County. Apparently this is the same as Jones #1. So, which is the proper name? And are there really three caves out there?

Information came via the web for a cave in Camden County. Turned out the cave was in our files and Dwight Weaver sent along more information on the cave(s), which he had visited some years ago. Field work is definitely needed here and if someone is interested in following up, I’ll put you in touch with the landowner, who sent in the report.

Ben Miller turned in three new caves on the Lampe and Galena quads, continuing his fine work in Stone County. Stone has been overlooked for years and there are just caves everywhere out there. Ben also gave me his database which I am slowly working with…

Andy Free turned in several locations from Pulaski County. And this county is still rich in new caves, despite a 100+ year history of people cataloging them. In fact, I don’t know of a cave-bearing county in this state that doesn’t have a lot more caves hiding in it. Andy also sent some more material which I am slow about going through (sorry).

Michael Carter sent in a pile of new reports, plus location improvements, plus other information, etc., etc. Michael is doing a good job helping others get locations turned in and refining our information. It will take me a while to get everything in to the database, greatly helped by the fact that all the new reports are already in the database format. And remember, contact Michael for cave leads in your area. michael_carter@hotmail.com

Michael also found a duplication in the files, so we lost one too. But that’s OK – bad data is absolutely useless…

Jon Beard sent text on the Stinson (Wilson) Cave area from an old Ozark Caver (the magazine not one of us). This will be reprinted as a Missouri Speleology (one of the missing years from the 90’s). There is a lot of great material in these old journals, which most people haven’t had access to. More on that later, but in the meantime, the text from Jon’s retyping will get pasted directly into the cave files. Grotto newsletter editors, PLEASE, send text versions of articles to me: they will be quickly cut and pasted into the files. We already have huge amounts of data, mostly in descriptive form, out there in old newsletters and guidebooks – much, if not most, of which never made its way into the files.

James Corsentino sent in a big pile of GPS locations from various counties, including Christian and Pulaski.

An interested non-caver (well, okay, my mother) sent a book on Big Creek in Texas County to the files. This book that she came across contains lots of cave descriptions and locations along Big Creek. Some of these are already in the files, due to work years ago and more recent efforts by Tim Harrison among others, it will take a while to sort out all the information and type in the material but this is a major amount of material. Thanks Mom!

I spent a lot of time cutting and pasting material from old databases and word processor files, including changes sent at various times via email.

A pile of new maps have lately been processed. I don’t actually do this processing but there’s quite a pile so I thought it best to give credit, even if it is belated:

-Tucker Spring Cave, Carter County by Mick Sutton and Sue Hagan of CRF

-Peter Cave, Iron County by Sutton, Hagan, Jeff Page, and Darla White, CRF

-Peter #2, Iron County by Sutton, Hagan, and Phil Nester of CRF

-Bird Bone Cave, Boone County, by Ben Miller and Brian Sakofski

-Green Teeth Cave, Boone County, by Miller and Bob Lerch

-Horse Collar Cave, Barry County, by House, Sutton, and Hagan, CRF

-Twin and Bear Waller Caves, Barry County, by House, Bob Osburn, and Andrea Croskrey, CRF

-White Oak Onyx Cave, Barry County, by House, Doug Baker, Dawn Cardace, and Jason Kolbe, CRF

-Camp Ridge Cave, Christian County, by House, Sutton, Hagan, CRF

-Radium Cave, Barry County (1220ft long and there’s more if someone wants it…), by House, Jerry Wagner, Osburn, Sutton, Hagan, CRF

-Fungus Gnat Cave, Barry County, by House, Sutton, CRF

-Sisco Cave, Oregon County, by Sutton, Hagan, and George Bilbrey

-Natural Bridge Tunnel, Ozark County, by House, Sutton, Bilbrey

-Crossbones Pit Cave, Stone County, by Miller and Paul Woods

-Fox Cave, Stone County, by Miller and Amber Spohn

-Random Act of Karst Pit, Stone County, by Miller and Spohn

-Chilton Cave, Carter County by Osburn and Cardace of CRF, Randy Orndorff and Dave Weary of the US Geological Survey

-Brazil Pit Cave, Washington County, by Osburn, House, Paul Hauck, Dan Riles, Cathy and Tim Odell.

-St. Davids Cave, Oregon County, by Sutton and Hagan

-Camp Cave, Ozark County, by Paul and Dee Hauck, Richard Young, and the Houses: Patti, Scott, Floyd, and Max

I may have mentioned some of these before but better to be repetitious than overlook someone. And I believe every one of these maps was drafted on a computer.

Which brings us to… how are you archiving your data? Now that maps are drawn on computer, are you archiving your original files? Sure we send a jpeg in to the DNR files, but are you also sending one to the MSS? And are you making a copy of your native survey files (Walls, Compass, whatever) and archiving that? And what about your native drawing files, like a .ai file for Illustrator? We have to be sure to archive those as well. The MSS can help; contact Joel Laws and find out how. Remember, hard drives crashing are not the only problem; there’s also theft, fire, etc. that can take away your original work.

Steve Taylor, working with Kirsten Alvey, has sent more locations in. These folks are doing a great job. This time, Steve sent locations from Cooper County, which really needs the work. And it all puts me further behind.

Steve and Kirsten, along with Andy, Ben, Michael, Leonard Butts, Dan Lamping, and others worked hard the morning of the MSS meeting – searching through files, correcting, locating, and examining cave data. This is something we really need to do more of. Lots of material was submitted or fixed.

Lastly, a caver from BATL gave me a location on National Forest land in Barry County. I have the location but have misplaced the full name of the caver. His last name is Davis, help?

Scott House

Missouri Cave Database

1606 Luce St.

Cape Girardeau MO 63701

573-651-3782

scott_house@semo.net