RESEARCH
Research has various different categories for example it can be scientific, the study of cave fauna, Microbiology and Geochemistry Research, water contamination, Hydrology and Geology.
It can also involve Archeological investigation and research but for most of us it is mainly the effort involved in finding, exploring and mapping water filled caves.
MICROBIOLOGY & GEOCHEMISTRY RESEARCH
By Jenn Macalady http://www.geosc.psu.edu/~jmacalad/index.html
Underwater caves are windows into a hidden world that is partly or totally shielded from oxygen in the earth's atmosphere. In low-oxygen or oxygen-free cave waters, native microoganisms are more similar to the life that inhabited the earth's oceans billions of years ago than microbial life found in the oceans today. That makes underwater caves interesting to scientists who want to understand how biogeochemical cycles worked on the ancient earth (or even on hypothetical oxygen-poor extraterrestrial planets).
The water chemistry of each underwater cave reflects the geometry of its passages (its plumbing), the geology of the host rock, the sources of the water, and the amount of nutrients that enter by soil percolation or through skylights to the surface. Caves that are separated by only a mile over land may have radically different chemistry and microorganisms. This variety, plus the possibility of discovering something new about ancient microbial life, make underwater caves exciting and important places to study microbiology.
This figure shows the tree of life based on DNA sequences coding for the taxonomic marker gene called 16S rRNA. Life is organised into three domains (Eucarya, Archaea, and Bacteria). Organisms on branches covered by blue can be seen with the naked eye, and include animals, plants, and fungi. The rest of the of the branches represent diverse types of microorganisms.
Cave water microbiology and chemistry also give important clues about the movement of water below the ground surface. Understanding how water moves underground can help us predict the movement of nutrients and pollutants, an important part of safeguarding drinking water resources and natural habitats.
Click for the Microbiology report of the Manatial Del Toro bacteria samples
WHAT IS BEHIND FINDING A CAVE... a short story of a very long process.
By Cristian Pittaro
A regular cave diver, usually worries about where the cave is, who is going to dive with, how to get to the cave, where to fill tanks, planning the dive with or without a map and then goes to dive...
However there is a lot more involved in the process of finding a cave, physically getting to the cave, obtaining permission to dive, finding local sherpas to help with the gear and to protect us and our stuff from looters while diving, that is, if you are lucky enough to even find anything to dive at all.
I will attempt to briefly describe the process:
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1- RESEARCH
This is the one that usually takes the longest and sometimes by luck may just happens by itself, sometimes. Stumbling upon or finding the area where you "feel" there might be potential is the first step.
Then the process of investigation begins, talking to everybody around, talking to people in every corner, asking farmers, asking the kids, grandpa, absolutely everybody you go across on the street.
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getting to the area may sometimes require long walks through rough jungle terrain, the area could be in a dangerous neighborhood which requires a whole other level of organization.
Either way once you actually get there speaking to local people, farmers, asking the kids, grandpa, absolutely everybody you see is a good way to get information. However, in the DR you can ask the same person the same question 10 times and you will get 10 different answers, but if you are lucky number 11 will be the answer you are looking for, this makes looking for caves here very difficult and tedious.
| 2 - RELATIONSHIP: There are several different levels of of relationships that are necessary, local people with knowledge of the area, friends, family members, farmers and landowners to government officials, it is important to interact with as many people as possible to try and gain access and information to the area in question. Eventually when you have made sufficient contacts, and gathered the necessary information and if need be permissions from landowners or government officials you are ready for phase 3. |
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3 - ACCESSIBILITY
Try and find out who the landowners are and get permission to walk around their land, sometimes it is government property or part of a national park and you will get into trouble if you are caught trespassing. Talking to and obtain permission from landowners may lead to even more potential caves, landowner's know better than anyone what is on their property, duh!
A special note about getting permission, in the DR almost everyone carries a gun,
if you enter someone's land without obtaining permission you will at some point risk getting into serious trouble.
4 - EXPLORATION (jungle side)
The next step is the hard part, we now have permission know more or less were to go and now have to get there.
If you are very lucky access will be relatively easy and not involve too much walking, yeah right.
A special note, before you wander off looking for caves, make sure that you have someone looking after the car and your belongings while you are gone, if you are in bad area, you must understand that the DR it is far rougher, lawless and third world than Mexico so be prepared at all times.
Get ready for tough terrain, super aggressive wasps, tarantulas, foot long centipedes, fire ants, poisonous trees and everything is after one thing, you!
The jungle is very thick in most parts and there are small hidden sinkholes and crevices all over the place just waiting to break your leg, watch were you step! The caves and sinkholes are usually invisible and completely overgrown, you really need to pay attention and watch for any signs of a cave underneath. Once you actually find something you must be extra careful when cutting through the brush not to disturb wasps nests or much worse a wild bee hive, a potentially lethal situation as the entire hive will attack you at once!
Dominican centipede(Dangerous if bites you)
You must then find a safe way to get down the cave or sinkhole, watch for loose and slippery rocks and the potential for a collapse. If you need to rappel down make sure you know what you are doing.
| If after all this you end up finding a potential cave, make it down safely and are
now at the water's edge of what might be a going water filled cave, you will
need to jump in and check it out. To check the potential of a cave you only need enough gear for Power Snorkeling, it must be light enough to carry in a small backpack for an entire day with minimal hassle. Our typical gear list includes, an AL19, a reg and SPG, a mask, small reel, lights and fins. |
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Jump in and check it out, but remember you only got an AL19, so never go very far, but to be as thorough as safely possible.
5 - EXPLORATION (in water) (THE GOOD STUFF!)
Finding a virgin cave is always a privilege, it makes all the time and effort worthwhile.
However exploration cave diving is very different than diving a known cave.
Going into the unknown you must be prepared to deal with any situation. Remember you are the first, you are laying the line so make sure there are no line traps and make solid tie offs. Being the first to dive a cave means percolation from your bubbles will almost always results in a zero visibility exit so be prepared for extreme silt outs, make sure you can tie knots and make tie offs in zero visibility and that you are 100% comfortable and proficient doing so.
If you dive with other people make sure they are up to it.
And remember, there is always another day so never push a new cave too hard, take it slow.
As with any cave, virgin or not great care must be taken to minimize the impact on the fragile cave environment, in or out of the water. Exploring a new system can take hours, days or decades depending on the size and complexity of the cave.
6 - SURVEY (The tedious)
Surveying is one of the most important parts of documenting a new cave, and the most time consuming.
It will take many dives and a lot of hard work to produce a an accurate survey.
depths, azimuth, measuring distances, making notes of particular features, making sketches, the list goes on. Underwater cave surveying is tedious work, using old school land mapping techniques,
underwater,GPS technology is totally useless, none of the modern electronic
gadgets
work underwater in a cave.
| A compass, depth gauge, slate and tape measure are our only tools, man... that's
high tech!! Using a compass with 2 degrees steps, counting knots or measuring with a tape, noting depths and sketching, we slowly record all the data, this normally takes 2 to 3 divers to be able to record that information, and at the same time avoiding any damage to the cave. Air supply is always a big concern, it is never enough!!.. |
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One other variable that makes surveying more difficult is gas supply, we can take several tanks, but some places are very remote and the amount of tanks you can carry is very limited, some times the filling stations are far away, and that also reduces the amount of information we can collect in a day.
Some times it will take a very long time to survey a cave, and maybe a team will not able to finish the job, this is one aspect of surveying that makes information sharing among subsequent explorations so important, by sharing information and working together a large cave system can be precisely mapped.
7 - MAPING (cyber dives)
Well, now we got some data, we could keep going in the old fashion and draw the map by hand, but... nah.... lets use a computer!!!!
There are a couple of programs that are able to assist us in the creation of the map having using the information we already gathered, I personally like one called Compass, but there are many more like Walls, most of those are programs written by dry cavers and/or cave divers who understand the requirements of cave surveying, none are perfect, but they all make our life really simple, just input the info and out comes a map. The map at first can be a simple stick map, and as information is added like the size of width and height of tunnels, a more precise map begins to emerge. As more information is gathered we can include precise GPS locations of cave entrances and geolocate the cave in GoogleEarth, cool!
After many hours of hard work and data collection, seeing a nice precise map of your cave take form is one of the most rewarding aspects of cave exploration.
8 - EDUCATION AND SAFETY
Ok, we found a cave, we surveyed it, made a map and shared it with everyone, now what??
Education is the next step, people in general, and especially here in the DR, don't really understand what a cave is.
For most people it is a good to swim on the week, hang out or unfortunately get rid of garbage.
Contamination is always a big concern, but also physical damage to the caves as stalactites are sold to tourists in many gift shops.
photo Jan Paul Pauel
Always take the time to talk to people about caves and the importance of conservation
Education on the need for conservation is a difficult but much needed undertaking.
By Organizing media campaigns in local villages to help people understand what caves really are, installing trash cans in popular caves, and showing people videos and pictures of caves has helped change peoples minds in many places and has helped clean up the caves.
Safety is also a big problem with divers who are not cave trained and who do not understand the hazards associated with cave diving. Some caves just do not look dangerous, they are beautifully decorated caves with large inviting tunnels of crystal clear water. As cave divers it is our duty to inform the diving community about the lethal dangers of non trained cave diving. In addition to information campaigns we are also installing warning signs in all DR caves trying to involve as much as possible to our local friends.
Before installing the sign at Padre Nuestro with our local helpers
If you want to cave dive, just contact us, we can orient you in how to do it safely and point you to a good school, or we can guide you if already a cave or cavern diver or provide you with information.
9 - LINE MAINTENANCE
By now we are dealing with everyone, from farmers, friends, local drunks talking about some cave to government officials and hotel owners.
We are hopelessly suffering from cave fever, an incurable mental disease, that leads to spending all your money on gear, tank fills, exploration, gas money, bug spray, food, hotels, car repairs etc.. we dive as much as possible and our wives and girlfriends feel left out and jealous, yeah like they compare to cave diving anyway. There is one aspect that needs to be taken care of too, line maintenance.
Nobody else is doing it so we must make sure that the line is in good condition and if need be replace or repair it. It has happened here many times, a boulder collapse buries the line, a rock or tie off comes loose. We will periodically make line inspection dives and make sure every thing is safe and kosher.
a tie off in need of repair
