A cave survey is a map of all or part of a cave system, which may be produced to meet differing standards of accuracy depending on the cave conditions and equipment available underground. Cave surveying and cartography, i.e. the creation of an accurate, detailed map, is one of the most common technical activities undertaken within a cave and is a fundamental part of speleology. Surveys can be used to compare caves to each other by length, depth and volume, may reveal clues on speleogenesis, provide a spatial reference for other areas of scientific study and assist visitors with route-finding.
Traditionally, cave surveys are produced in two-dimensional form due to the confines of print, but given the three-dimensional environment inside a cave, modern techniques using computer aided design are increasingly used to allow a more realistic representation of a cave system.
Read more about Cave Survey: History, Methodology, Hydrolevelling, Accuracy, Surveying Software, Automated Methods
Famous quotes containing the words cave and/or survey:
“Do you know how poetry started? I always think that it started when a cave boy came running back to the cave, through the tall grass, shouting as he ran, Wolf, wolf, and there was no wolf. His baboon-like parents, great sticklers for the truth, gave him a hiding, no doubt, but poetry had been bornthe tall story had been born in the tall grass.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (18991977)
“In a famous Middletown study of Muncie, Indiana, in 1924, mothers were asked to rank the qualities they most desire in their children. At the top of the list were conformity and strict obedience. More than fifty years later, when the Middletown survey was replicated, mothers placed autonomy and independence first. The healthiest parenting probably promotes a balance of these qualities in children.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)