干旱区生态环境知识资源中心(Arid): A brief history of exploration in Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, USA

Arid

	A brief history of exploration in Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, USA
	Lyles, J. T. M.; Davis, D. G.
通讯作者	Lyles, JTM
来源期刊	BOLETIN GEOLOGICO Y MINERO
ISSN	0366-0176
EISSN	2253-6167
出版年	2016
卷号	127 期号:1 页码:111-129
英文摘要	Lechuguilla Cave, a complex three-dimensional cave with a single known entrance, is located in remote desert terrain in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, in southeastern New Mexico, USA. The Guadalupe Mountains there contain uplifted limestone and dolomite rock in the Permian-age Capitan Reef complex. Hundreds of caves have been found in this region, but Lechuguilla Cave greatly exceeds the size of all others known. It was only a small pit mined for bat guano in the early twentieth century. In the 1970s the Cave Research Foundation performed digs at the bottom, where profuse air movement had been noted in the debris. This work ceased but another team of cavers visited in 1984, hearing and feeling the significant air, and began a digging project approved by the Park. The cavers dug into continuing passage in 1986. It was explored in three major branches, generally trending west/southwest to east/northeast, parallel to the reef face, with north-south connections along deep rift features. Depositional and corrosional events during sulfuric-acid speleogenesis created remarkable speleothems and speleogenesis, and the cave has often been called "the Jewel of the Underground". The rapidly growing cave passed 80 km of surveyed length by 1990. Within the first ten years of exploration, 28 large-scale expeditions led to the cave reaching 113 km in length. From 1997 to 2013, 109 additional kilometers were mapped with smaller teams of up to 12 cavers per expedition. Exploration and mapping is now done in three to five expeditions per year, and recent work has focused on climbs and smaller leads such as tight crawls and fissures that were previously passed. Significant discoveries continue to be found using these techniques. The cave reaches a depth of 475 m and has been mapped to over 222 km in length. Exploration to the extreme ends is efficiently done with multi-day expeditions, using established camps in each branch. Cavers from the United States and dozens of other countries have been involved in this mapping project. The cave now has more than 35,000 survey stations, and the complexity of the maze of passages creates significant challenges for cartographers. Based on ever-present airflow and porosity of the bedrock, it is expected that this cave will continue to surprise and delight explorers and speleo-scientists in the future.
类型	Article
语种	英语
收录类别	ESCI
WOS记录号	WOS:000375599400008
WOS类目	Geology
WOS研究方向	Geology
Scopus学科分类	441 S Kearney St, Denver, CO 80224 USA.
资源类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.177/qdio/handle/2XILL650/331520
作者单位	[Lyles, J. T. M.] POB 95, Los Alamos, NM 87544 USA; [Davis, D. G.] 441 S Kearney St, Denver, CO 80224 USA
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Lyles, J. T. M.,Davis, D. G.. A brief history of exploration in Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, USA[J],2016,127(1):111-129.
APA	Lyles, J. T. M.,&Davis, D. G..(2016).A brief history of exploration in Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, USA.BOLETIN GEOLOGICO Y MINERO,127(1),111-129.
MLA	Lyles, J. T. M.,et al."A brief history of exploration in Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, USA".BOLETIN GEOLOGICO Y MINERO 127.1(2016):111-129.