[CML #17413] Fwd: Cave and karst news and announcements from NCKRI

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От кого: George Veni <>
Кому: George Veni <>
Дата: Суббота, 25 апреля 2020, 7:41 +03:00
Тема: Cave and karst news and announcements from NCKRI

Dear Friends,

As we temporarily become more distant physically to protect each other from the COVID-19 virus, we are becoming closer digitally in many ways. I’m therefore happy to welcome the cavers of Croatia and Greece to this NCKRI e-mail list. If you represent your country’s national or regional caving organization, or are an individual getting these NCKRI news messages indirectly, please contact me if you would like to be added to NCKRI’s e-mail list. There is no cost to join and NCKRI does not sell its list or send spam.

We continue to send you our best hopes that you and your loved ones are well during this time of international crisis.

Here is the latest news:

Various News

Help Protect the Caves of Brazil: Urgent!
International Year of Caves and Karst: Planning Guide in Multiple Languages
Global Distribution of Carbonate Rocks and Karst Water Resources: New Report
Celebrate Cave Week with the US National Park Service
US National Park Service: Call for Website and Newsletter Reports and Photos

Conferences and Meetings

18^th International Congress of Speleology: Registration and Call for Abstracts Now Open!
Announcing the Fort Stanton Cave Science Conference: New Mexico, USA
US Geological Survey Karst Interest Group Workshop: Postponed
2020 US National Speleological Society Convention: Cancelled
List of Upcoming Cave and Karst Meetings

Please contact the people and organizations listed below for more information, and feel free to share this message with anyone who may be interested.

George

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Help Protect the Caves of Brazil: Urgent!

For many years, Brazil’s Decree 6640/2008 has stood as one of the world’s best examples of legislation to protect caves and the karst areas in which they occur. Sadly, as the international community is preparing to celebrate the International Year of Caves and Karst next year there is new activity in Brazil that will remove or decrease the protections offered by Decree 6640/2008.

To help prevent this travesty, please go to the following link to sign the petition protesting changes to Decree 6640/2008 and to get more information on how else you can help:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/community_petitions/sociedade_brasileira_de_espeleologia_cavernas_brasileiras_em_perigo_brazilian_caves_in_danger/details/

Details are provided in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.

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International Year of Caves and Karst: Planning Guide in Multiple Languages

One big challenge in planning an international event is to make sure the information is understood internationally. I’m therefore happy to announce the Planning Guide for the International Year of Caves and Karst (IYCK) is now available in Chinese, English, Portuguese, and Spanish. The Planning Guide is critically important to help you understand the IYCK and create events to make the IYCK a success. The informational leaflet is now also all four languages. You can find them and more information at www.iyck2021.org.

If you would like to translate these documents into your native language to better promote the IYCK, or to help with the IYCK in other ways. please contact me at .

The IYCK has incredible potential to advance speleology in many and great ways, but only if we all work together to make it possible.

George Veni, PhD

Executive Director, National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI)

and

President, International Union of Speleology (UIS)

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Global Distribution of Carbonate Rocks and Karst Water Resources: New Report

These NCKRI news messages do not usually include announcements of individual scientific articles, but this one, Global Distribution of Carbonate Rocks and Karst Water Resources, is of global interest and significance. Dr. Nico Goldscheider organized an international team of experts, including from NCKRI, to develop the World Karst Aquifer Map and conduct this first detailed evaluation of karst and its water resources worldwide.

The paper is an open access publication in Hydrogeology Journal and can be viewed and downloaded for free from:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10040-020-02139-5

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Celebrate Cave Week with the US National Park Service

The US National Park Service is celebrating Cave Week from 3-9 May 2020 with more than 20 national parks across the US. They are participating in via social media posts, cave tours, exhibits, school events, web pages and much more. To learn more and get involved, visit https://www.nps.gov/subjects/caves/cave-week.htm?fbclid=IwAR0c0Jm257LdEoyLoc8aHwdNw4IiL2AbHEtzRHmHGw3Bv695EP99i72OhsE.

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US National Park Service: Call for Website and Newsletter Reports and Photos

The National Park Service in partnership with the National Cave and Karst Research Institute is seeking to re-do and expand upon a large number of the NPS cave and karst program web pages including the photo galleries. In addition the NPS cave management newsletter, Inside Earth, is returning as an online serial publication with Chelsea Ballard from Mammoth Cave National Park as the new Editor. This is a call for content. We regularly solicit photos and article content from the NPS cave managers across the Service, and they provide great things. But we would like to expand that request to our many, many caving volunteers, partners and recreators that do so much inside of NPS caves and lava tubes. We are looking for wide ranging content, although we do want more than just trip reports. Reports on a biological survey, a SAR practice, a cave mapping effort, education and outreach programs, a cave discovery and any research, monitoring or inventory work or similar would be valuable and appreciated. Writing with children in mind and poetry and more artistic writings will also be considered. Articles need not be long. We cannot use articles that have been copyrighted, but we might re-use un-copyrighted content that had previously appeared elsewhere. Please submit photos with any article. Unless it is the Historic Mammoth Entrance or the Natural Entrance to Carlsbad, etc. never include any sort of cave location information in your article in order to ensure compliance with the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act. Note that the NPS pages do receive a high volume of traffic. This is particularly true of visitors from schools including both teachers and students. Please keep that audience in mind.

We are also seeking a wide range of aesthetically pleasing, good-quality photos for the galleries. Restoration projects, karst and volcanic landscapes, sinkholes, pits, cave animals, springs, water, cavers on rope, researchers, caving kids, tight crawls, bats, entrances, etc. within our National Parks are all great content. And, we are not just after Lechuguilla shots with flashy stal. We hope to show a wide range of NPS caves and activities from across the US. Photographers with multiple photos can possibly have their own galleries, and we can do galleries for particular parks or particular caves with one or more photographers.

Of course, work with your local NPS cave manager so that they are aware of your writing efforts or fine photos and that you are sharing them with the greater NPS. They may have good suggestions on photos and article topics. Perhaps they also might want to use or at least keep a copy of your content. Some parks may be very careful what information they share about their caves. Please be very considerate of these concerns and issues.

Credit and bylines can be either stated as "Courtesy of .... " or we can add a copyright to your photos or articles. I have been told that due to the two previously stated options, providing a courtesy content or the NPS copyrights your content in your name, you should not need to sign any paperwork granting your permission or handing over rights to the photo or article. I am not sure if that is the last word on the subject. Hopefully it is the last word, and it will be easy. In any case, we will sort out that detail before any content is published.

Photos will be housed in the NP gallery (https://npgallery.nps.gov/) and linked into content from there.

Of course, all content on the web is subject to copying and piracy, and it is possible that your article or photo could end up all over the internet. Please remember that when you consider what to share with the NPS.

Note that for the time being, this is an open-ended call. There is no deadline.

To see what the final products will look like, please see the NPS pages and Cave Week content at https://www.nps.gov/subjects/caves/index.htm.

How to submit content

Please send articles to any of my email addresses in the address list above. Please also send photos to those email addresses. Please send low-resolution versions of your photos initially. I have cruddy rural internet. If we are going to use a photo, we will request a high-resolution version.

Thank you very much all and stay healthy!

Joel Despain

NCKRI Cave and Karst Management Scientist

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18^th International Congress of Speleology: Registration and Call for Abstracts Now Open!

The 18^th International Congress of Speleology (ICS) will be held next year from 25 July to 1 August 2021 in Savoie Mont Blanc, France. Each ICS happens once every four years and they are the most world’s significant events for cave exploration, science, and protection. Next year’s ICS will be greatest ever as the main celebration of the International Year of Caves and Karst.

The 18^th ICS is an event you won’t want to miss! Registration is now open and the call for abstracts has begun, with a deadline of 30 June 2020. For all the details and more news, go to https://uis2021.speleos.fr/.

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Announcing the Fort Stanton Cave Science Conference: New Mexico, USA

With the discovery of the Snowy River passage in 2001, Fort Stanton Cave has emerged as one of the most scientifically significant caves in the western US. The primary goal of this conference is to gather together the many individuals who have been working on various scientific and related aspects of Fort Stanton Cave to share results, cross-fertilize their work with other investigators, and hopefully to stimulate more interest in scientific projects into the future.

When: September 17-19, 2020

Where: New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico, USA

Abstracts are invited for posters or oral presentations. Abstracts should be submitted online or may be accepted in other formats in special cases (contact the Program Chair for details). Please view the help page for formatting guidelines. Abstracts must be submitted by Sunday, September 6, 2020 and be 1000 words or less.

For more information visit https://geoinfo.nmt.edu/FtStanton/home.cfm.

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US Geological Survey Karst Interest Group Workshop: Postponed

Dear Karst Interest Group Workshop attendees:

As you know the USGS Karst Interest Group (KIG) was planning on having the 8^th Triennial Workshop in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, on May 13th-15^th, 2020, but had to be postponed. The KIG Workshop is being rescheduled to occur in May 2021. When we are able to confirm availability of facilities at Tennessee State University, then we will send another email update and post the confirmed dates on the KIG webpage at URL <https://www.usgs.gov/kig-workshop>. The meeting registration page will remain open, hopefully encouraging more people to plan to attend; thereby making this KIG an even bigger and better event. Likewise, submissions for oral and poster presentations will reopen, with final abstracts due by February 10, 2021 (see web page for details).

Thank you and be safe.

Sincerely,

Allan Clark

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2020 US National Speleological Society Convention: Cancelled

Dear NSS Friends,

After much listening, discussion, careful consideration, and in accordance with federal, state, and local recommendations, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 NSS Convention. Given the painful reality of COVID-19, one of the greatest global challenges of our lifetimes, we believe this is the right thing to do.

Yes, we are heartbroken. We know you are too. However, public health and the well-being of our members, our staff, and our neighbors in the Elkins, West Virginia, community are our highest priorities.

This decision requires a complete change in logistics. To those of you who preregistered—in the coming weeks, we will be establishing the mechanisms needed to process refunds. You will be contacted individually with your options to proceed.

We are also considering available options for conducting some elements of convention in some virtual space. In the interim, we ask your patience as we thought it best to inform everyone of this development sooner rather than later.

To the convention staff—we give our full sincere thanks for all the efforts you made. It’s difficult times like these that we truly realize what a great group of caving friends we have. And we look forward to working with you in the future.

We are now initiating plans to move the 2020 West Virginia Convention to 2023 and moving forward with the 2021 convention in Weed, California.

Until we can once more crawl a muddy crawl or party around a bonfire—stay smart, stay safe, stay healthy.

Rich Geisler and Meredith Weberg
NSS 2020 Convention Co-Chairs

Katherine “Kat” Crispin, Ph.D.
NSS Administrative Vice President

Geary Schindel
NSS President

Nathan Farrar
NSS Chair of the Directorate

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List of Upcoming Cave and Karst Meetings

If you are interested in any of the following events, contact them directly to learn if they are still planned as announced below.

1) KARSYS Karst Modeling Course, 20 May 2020 (Reston, Virginia, USA), register with ; 22 May 2020 (Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA), register with ; general information: https://karstwaters.org/karsys-course-a-web-tool-for-modeling-karst-aquifers-in-3d/.

2) German Caver’s Meeting, 25 Years of Landesverband Hessen, 21-24 May 2020, (Breitscheid, Germany), www.vdhk.de.

3) 14^th International Symposium on Pseudokarst, June 2020 (Świętokrzyskie [Holy Cross] Mountains, Poland), https://14pseudokarst.wonders4you.com/

4) Karst Field Studies Program (4 one-week courses), 7 June – 10 July 2020 (Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, USA), www.karstfieldstudies.com.

5) 14^thBalkan Cavers’, 2-5 July 2020 (Dryanovo Town, Bulgaria), http://balkancaverscamp.weebly.com/

6) Karst Record IX (KR9) Conference, 12-15 July 2019 (Innsbruck, Austria), https://www.uibk.ac.at/congress/kr9/

7) US National Speleological Society Annual Convention, 27-31 July 2020 (Elkins, West Virginia, USA), https://caves.regfox.com/nss-convention-2020

8) 14th EuroSpeleo Forum 2020, 31 July – 2 August 2020 (Burgos, Spain), https://congresointernacionalespeleologia2020.blogspot.com/

9) International Training Camp for Young Speleologists: Germany, 1-15 August 2020 (Schwäbische Alb [Swabian Jura], South Germany), https://www.juhoefola.de/english.html.

10) Carbonate Critical Zone: An NSF-Sponsored Workshop, 2-5 August 2020 (Philadelphia and central Pennsylvania), https://carbonatecriticalzone.research.ufl.edu/

11) UNESCOkarst 2020: Conservation of Fragile Karst Resources, 15-21 August 2020 (Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA), https://unescokarst2020.com/

12) 34^th International Geographical Congress karst sessions: Global Karst Critical Zone and Land Use Planning in Karst, 17-20 August 2020 (Istanbul, Turkey), https://www.igc2020.org/en/KARST%20COMMISSION.html

13) Central Asian Speleological Forum, 21-24 August 2020 (Tashkent, Uzbekistan), https://speleo.kg/en/news/first-circular-speleo-ca-forum-2020/

14) 9th International Workshop on Ice Caves (IWIC-IX) & the 12th Scientific Conference Research, Utilization and Protection of Caves, 8-11 September 2020 (Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia), http://www.ssj.sk/en/akcia/18-12th-scientific-conference-research-protection-and-utilization-of-caves

15) 6th EuroSpeleo Protection Symposium, 22 - 26 September 2020 (Isle of Vilm, Germany), contact rg

16) 26th International Cave Bear Symposium, 8-11 October 2020 (Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Mannheim, Germany), .

17) Geological Society of America Convention, 25-28 October 2020 (Montréal, Québec, Canada), http://www.geosociety.org/

18) European Cave Rescue Association Meeting 2020, 12-15 November 2020 (Cantabria, Spain), https://caverescue.eu/ecra-meeting-2020-cantabria-spain/

19) ALCADI 2020: International Symposium on History of Speleology and Karstology (ALps, CArpathians and DInarides), 5-8 December 2020 (Gorizia, Italy), contact:

20) 1^st Karst Science Forum, postponed to 2021 (Bucharest, Romania), https://www.eris100.ro.

21) International Course and Field Seminar: Characterization and Engineering of Karst Aquifers, postponed to 2021 (Žabljak-Durmitor Mt., Virpazar-Skadar Lake in Montenegro, and in Trebinje in Bosnia & Herzegovina), http://www.karst.edu.rs.

22) 7th International Course Characterization and Engineering of Karst Aquifers (CEKA), postponed to 2021 (Montenegro: Žabljak-Durmitor Mt., Virpazar-Skadar Lake, and Bosnia and Herzegovina: Trebinje), http://www.karst.edu.rs.

23) 16^th Multidisciplinary Conference on the Engineering and Environmental Impacts of Karst, 12-16 April 2021 (San Juan, Puerto Rico), www.sinkholeconference.com

24) US Geological Survey Karst Interest Group Meeting, May 2021 (Nashville, Tennessee, USA), https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/karst-interest-group-kig-2020-workshop?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects

25) Karst Waters Institute Frontiers in Karst: Sulfuric Acid Weathering, postponed to mid-summer 2021 (San Vittore, Italy), https://karstwaters.org/conferences/sulfuric-acid-weathering/

26) EuroKarst 2021: The European Congress on Karst Hydrogeology and Carbonate Reservoirs, 22-24 June 2021 (Málaga, Spain), http://www.eurokarst.org/

27) 18^th International Congress of Speleology, 25 July – 1 August 2021 (Savoie Technolac, Le Bourget du Lac, Savoie, France), http://uis2021.speleos.fr/

28) 19^th International Symposium on Vulcanospeleology, tentatively August or September 2021 (Catania, Italy), http://www.19isvetna.com/

29) Speleo Kamaraton, 29 October – 1 November 2021 (Marina di Camerota, Salerno, Italy), http://www.speleokamaraton.eu/

********************

George Veni, PhD

Executive Director, National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI)

and

President, International Union of Speleology (UIS)

NCKRI address (primary)

400-1 Cascades Avenue

Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220 USA

Office: +575-887-5517

Mobile: +210-863-5919