Video

Looks like we may going to look for fungi next. Sarah does rock the coat. Makes the video.

Thank you for your very kind words and somehow convincing the algorithm to show our work. Looking for the odd little things in a cave is the coolest way to spend one's life. Hell Yeaaaaah

Thanks Dave

Glad you enjoyed it

Yea it was. It is getting harder and harder to do those long trips.

Thank you

It was a really cool trip. Great cavers and a great cave.

It is an iconic cave.

Me and my friend live in Breck County

Anyone can get into the cave with proper gear but you would need to go with a KKC member or join the KKC. Big Bat is a flood cave so understanding the danger is important also. My email is in the channel description. Send me a message and we will start figuring out how to get you guys in a cave

@@caverken I'm aware that this cave is a wet cave, I've been in a few and have even found uncharted/unknown ones in the middle of nowhere in the backwoods of Kentucky. Me and my friend are both 17, he's almost 18. We are respectful of locations and the history of the area and never vandalize.

@@SturmtruppKriegGaming1916 A wet cave is an understatement. This will flood to the point of drowning. I have some land out near Big Spring. Love the area. Did you find my email? It is under the section call it "If you have one of my cards click here"

Yea it was pretty cool playing with the 360 clips and the color files on the Olympus are really good so they were fun to adjust. Your shots with the selfie stick were way better than the cable cam. Thank you for all the help on this one.

Proof of concept for the vertical light suit photos. We need a cave with an easy drop where we can move back away to get the whole scene in the shot.

Yea Spider is a pretty funny guy. You can appreciate this. He lost his trailer to a hurricane and FEMA did not give him enough to get back on his feet and the insurance company ripped him off.

Thank you. Caving in Florida when it is cold up here was a pretty good idea. How have you been?

Yea it was pretty cool. Hey the price of convention went down so I might be down there.

Yea I can do a talk if I need to. I just think other people are more interesting than me.

From "Cave Geology" by Art Palmer Karst Window: A sinkhole with a flowing cave stream at the bottom. I hope this helps.

Unfortunately the scanner needs to be on a tripod and have survey monuments (minimum three) to connect the scans. With new tech coming out then it may be possible. All of this stuff is pretty heavy and expensive so you have to have the people to carry it back into some pretty rough places. With grants, rented equipment and volunteers pushing the edges of exploration and the equipment doesn't always get on the list. Great question and would be a great project.

@@caverken so many rooms for us to explore… it’s very tempting. I hope the tech improves soon. Happy splunking.

Thank you and Happy Splunking to you also

Yes he is. I consider myself pretty lucky to have gotten to do this project with Bill. Great to see your appreciation for what Bill has done in TAG.

Thank you for your interest. This is LiDAR data and not photogrammetry. It would be impossible to carry enough lights and batteries into Big Bat Cave to capture RGB data. With the LiDAR we could scan in darkness. We used Faro scanners. I will be glad to answer any questions. My email is in my about page.

@@caverken Thank you for your informative reply! You would be surprised how sensitive modern camera systems are and where there is a will there is always a way. It becomes a question of time. With modern top of the line cooled cameras it is theorhetically possible to image a section of cave just using photons flouresced from salts being excited by radioactive decay. This might take anywhere from a day to a week per section! however, depending on if a photomultiplier tube is used. On a more realistic timescale, one can without problems use a conventional 360 degree array of high sensitivity astro cameras. I think a good led of 10 watts should produce circa 1000 lumen, giving a surface brightness of circa 10 lux in a sphere with a 3 meter radius, which is quite bright for these cameras and should enable at least exposure times of maybe 50-100ms or 20-10 FPS or so, you should be able to get a basic semi realtime photogrammetric measurement. How large are these cave systems typically and what is the albedo by the way? Are my numbers about right? Lastly, how long does one usually stay down there for? A 2+KWh lipo or lithium ion battery should fit decently into a backpack enabling at least 200 hours of operation for the light, and maybe 100-150 hours at least with the camera systems, so based on this I would disagree about the light statement. Thanks again for the information about the email!

@@ivanrodionov9724 I had to go get another cup of coffee before tackling this. Thank you for making me think. Lets start with the 3 meter light distance. In some areas of the cave we are < 10 cm from the walls and ceiling and other times we are 20+ meters from the ceiling. On long passages being able to space the LiDAR scanner 15+ meters between scans gets good quality data and moves the project through the cave. No one has ever measured the albedo since we are not dependent on light but the LiDAR does record the reflective indices. We used those numbers to create the gray scale in the video. We rent the equipment on a holiday weekend so we can get up to four days scanning for a day and a half rental fee. A group of four will scan for four hours and then be replaced that requires twenty four volunteers for a full day working around the clock. So we get three days for one day rental. Cavers usually spend with travel time eight to ten hours underground with travel time to the work site. We have three miles scanned and we will have to do overnighters in the cave to get more of the project scanned. We had a grant and caver support for that project but Covid hit and our cache of stored batteries and food turned to junk and had to be thrown away. Maybe next year. Thank you for the great discussion. I have an article in the NSS News (March 2017 Vol 75, Num 3) explaining the project. I can send you a copy if you let me know where.

@@caverken Intriguing! The question becomes what is the average distance to the wall in the caves? The problem with LIDAR grayscale values is that this reflection intensity is only measured in the infra red (or whatever wavelength band is used) and does not nesseserilly represent the true brightness visible to your eyes. I think assuming a 30-50 percent albedo is fair for smooth ish shiny ish rock. I think 3 meters would make a fair average distance that will be a bit conservative actually. Even going by 10 meters radius as a worst case scenario, for the same reflected flux to the observer, an 11ish times increase in power is needed from a 3 meter distance case or circa 100-110 watts, which is still reasonable. Even at this brightness, the same battery pack can provide at least 20 hours of operation (100 watts is an insane light level by the way for an LED, comparable to a smaller sized football stadium light). At worst case scenario of 8-10 hours and at a worst case of 10 meter radius cave in all directions, you will have a margin of safety of 100+%, so incredibly safe in my opinion. Is there a proper margin of safety standard you use by the way? I try to aim for at least a 50 percent margin when working with critical systems. Staying overnight in a cave sounds like a very interresting prospect. If possible, I would be very interrested to read the NSS article. I'll check in your about if I can find the email, maybe you can send it to me there.

Any project requiring me to eat pizza is an automatic yes.

Thank you

Thank you. We need to get back underground

Thanks Dave

Great comment

@@caverken thanks

Thank You Tim

Yea it was a lot of editing but I learned a lot. Now I am not sure what is next but I have some ideas.

@@caverken Tech question on how you mic'ed everything?

@@adventureunderground2234 I rented a pro stereo mic and put it on a pole and connected it to its' own recorder. It came out pretty good.

Thank you for your help.

Thank you Dave. I appreciate all you did to make this happen.

A good start would be to contact the Kentucky Karst Conservancy on Facebook. facebook.com/search/top?q=kentucky%20karst%20conservancy

The hole or Karst window empties the water into a creek sized passage. The creek flows into a larger passage but no one knows what happens when the water is up. It would drown anything that is in there. Watching the weather is part of trip planning in Big Bat Cave. The internet has made that a lot easier. Thank you for the question.

I am glad you enjoyed Marion's talk. He was a heck of a guy and added a lot to some cool projects.

It was a great trip with some great people.

Yea I seem to get shit from everyone.

Thank you. We need to get back underground soon.

@@caverken Yes we do. Dean wants a BigBat trip. He has never been in BigBat. Maybe a Ky Hole and water fall trip?

@@adventureunderground2234 That sounds like a great trip.

Unfortunately not. It has been a few years back since I went and the two times I have been there some one led the way. I am not even sure where to park. There was no trail.

Thank you for the kind words. I need to check up on Tiffany. I have some other projects planned with music.

Could not have done it without you. Thank you for the help.

@@caverken Glad I could be of help. It was a good day, anytime a person has a good day - it was a good trade for a day of thier life!

@@elliottwoosley553 Could not have said it better.

My only carbide caving was when a was lent a lamp. It leaked down my face on every crawl. Thank you for reminding me of that trip long ago. Let me know when you get the lamps working.

I am glad you made it to the end.

It is a great cave and we had a great trip. Very cool that NOLS uses the cave. Thank you for sharing.

Yea Shari did a damn good job of digging out some old shots.

It was a pleasure hanging out with Preston and Shari dug through the pictures to come up with all the ones with carbide lamps in them. I am glad you showed up with your carbide that day forty years ago. It made the video that much richer.

Sounds like a cool project. Should we plan a trip back to Alabama?

@@caverken I've always wanted to go in and check out an old coal mine. Specially in Alabama near Birmingham / Warrior area. Specific enough? LOL I've always wondered if this is why I've always enjoyed caves. I have no contacts though. There is another little cave near Burnside KY past Somerset that has had a big part of my interest. I've wanted to take you there for years. Its just hard to justify a 3+ hour drive each way for a 30 minute cave.

I am mapping a cave in Somerset. I go down there about every three months. I always try to find a small cave every trip. Sounds like the perfect cave for the project. Let's make it happen this spring.

@@caverken sounds good

That is a great question. I will get with Dave and see if he has map or some sort of documentation.

There is a cave down the road under the bridge that cuts through the mountain but this is the second entrance into Wells. Thank you for sharing the memory.

Thanks!

Sarah is not looking for anything in particular. She is getting a base line of what is in there. So the next sample in the future will look for change over time or if there is stability in the cave. Great question.

Stuff is growing and I bought an adapter for the phone to fit on the microscope. I might figure something out for macro also. Then we can post and hopefully get the internet to identify the stuff.

Thank you.