11.12.06

Atlas of Great Caves of the World

From the Editors: Joel Despain, Lee Florea, and Pat Kambesis
To: All Potential Contributors



Cave Books, the publication affiliate of the Cave Research Foundation, USA, is pleased to announce their plans to update and revise Atlas of the Great Caves of the World. This all new English-language edition will be completed and in press in time for the 2009 International Congress of Speleology to be held in Kerrville Texas.

The previous edition was originally published in French in 1986 by Paul Courbon and Claude Chabert. The English version by Courbon, Chabert, Bosted & Lindlsey was published in 1989. At the time of its publication, Lechuguilla Cave was 50 kilometers long (now 180 kilometers in length) and the world's deepest cave, Krubera, had not been discovered.

There are several criteria for caves to be included in this edition. These are:


- All caves over 30 kilometers long (currently there are 117 on the Gulden list.)
- All caves over 1000 meters deep (currently that includes 84 caves) ,
- For each country of the world, the significantly longest and deepest caves regardless of their ranking on the world lists as to be determined by the editors.
- Caves that include the world's largest underground chambers (greater than 30,000m2)
- Greatest Through-Trips (caves containing a traverse where the cave is entered by an upper entrance, and exited by a lower entrance.)
- Greatest underground ascents (the difference in elevation between the extreme points of the possible climb, whether the point of departure is the entrance of the cave or a low point made inside the cave.)
- Record cave dives
- Greatest hydrogeologic systems
- Greatest non-limestone caves
- Great vertical pits either solitary or within a cave.
- Caves with other particularly outstanding and extraordinary features such as mineral deposits, archeology, paleontology, etc. as determined by the editors


For this to be a successful project we need your help. Updated maps, articles, photographs and information on the World's significant long and deep caves are critical to complete this book. The information can be submitted to us in any form. A submission form, included on the side bar menu of this page can be filled out and sent to us via email or via standard mail. For standard mail, please use the address listed below.
If you have such information, please submit it to us for inclusion in the revised version of the Atlas. Your suggestions and comments on the Atlas are welcome and we thank you in advance for your assistance.


Atlas of Great Caves of the World
revised edition
Editors: Lee Florea, Joel Despain & Pat Kambesis
http://www.cave-research.org/greatcaves/atlas.html

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