Janet Sowers, Project Manager

This year was a productive one for the Lava Beds project. We fielded five expeditions involving a total of 32 people, logging in 639 volunteer hours. Below is a summary of our activities.

Cave Survey, Inventory, and GPS Location

Our major efforts this year have been in the area of basic cave documentation --cave location, survey and cartography, and inventory. Bill Devereaux continues to lead the cave location effort, working with monument staff to obtain high-precision cave locations with the monument’s GPS system. He has also been installing brass markers at the cave entrances that serve as our GPS reference points as well as identify the cave by name and by number.

Cave survey continues at a steady pace. In 1997 we surveyed Reunion Cave, Coral Reef Cave, Jumble Cave, Downtown Cave, and Bypass Cave. Two of these are now drawn up in final form. Several caves surveyed last year remain to be drawn up.

We are experimenting with a new way of plotting azimuth data to correct for the magnetic anomalies that seem to be a constant problem in these caves. Foresights and backsights are found to differ by as much as 20 degrees in some caves. The correction method assumes that the anomaly at any given station is constant regardless of the direction the compass is pointing. Thus, the angle between the foresight and backsight taken from a single station is correct, regardless of the direction or amount of the anomaly. The Coral Reef Cave azimuth data were the first cave data plotted using this new anomaly correction procedure, however, because the cave had only one entrance and no interior loops, we had no way of knowing whether the corrected plot was a better representation of the cave geometry than the uncorrected plot.

On a later trip Janet Sowers and Bill and Peri Frantz conducted a test of the magnetic anomaly correction procedure by surveying a loop in the front and out the back of a short segment of Hercules Leg Cave, closing the loop over the surface. Foresights and backsights differed by 4 to 6 degrees in this survey. We plotted up the data, both corrected and uncorrected, and found that the corrected plot closed the loop best. We conclude that it is worth the effort to correct the bearings.

We continued with long-term monitoring of ice levels in the ice caves, and winter bat population counts. An interesting phenomena in Merrill Ice Cave was observed this fall. The ice at the base of the ice pond apparently melted and drained out, leaving a small ice cavern beneath the ice slab that once was the top of the pond. As far as we know this has not been observed at Lava Beds before. This coming February we will thoroughly document the status of the ice in Merrill and try to understand what happened.

Coming up! In the fall of 1998, CRF will assist the USFS Modoc National Forest in the "Klamath Basin Cave Workshop", a cave management workshop for USFS biologists in the N. California, Oregon, Washington area. We have agreed to give a presentation on lava cave geology, and to conduct some cave tours at Lava Beds for workshop participants.

We are moving, slowly but surely, toward the dream of a field research facility at Lava Beds! If you haven’t been following this story, our goal is to provide a base of operations for researchers of any stripe whose work will contribute to the understanding of Lava Beds natural or cultural resources. CRF has long wished for such a place to do cave-related work, and we know of other researchers who would jump at the chance to work at Lava Beds if they had a facility to work from.

Our plan is to design the facility, raise the funds, and supervise the construction ourselves, then hand the Park Service the keys to the Lava Beds Research Center. By doing it this way we can ensure that the building is designed and built to best serve the needs of researchers like ourselves, and we can make it happen for about half the cost and in half the time compared to the Park Service. It is unlikely that such a project would be built otherwise; Lava Beds has tried in the past to get NPS funds for a facility but it must compete with other more high-profile parks for increasingly scarce funds. CRF sees this research center as a long term contribution to the future of one of the premier cave parks in the country.

This year we took several significant steps. First, Richard Minert (of SFBC and Minert Architects, Inc.) made drawings of the proposed facility showing the floor plan and front and side elevations. The building, as drawn, is 1300 square feet with a simple, elegant design that is inexpensive and fits in with the rustic setting. It has a wrap-around deck, and sits on a knoll with a spectacular view of the Tule Lake valley. It contains work space, storage space, kitchen, and living quarters. In a March meeting Richard presented the sketches to Lava Beds Superintendent Craig Dorman and Chief of Resources Management Chuck Barat. They were very pleased. Richard will proceed with the construction drawings as soon as these sketches get final approval.

Second, we have jointly prepared a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) among the three parties involved: the National Park Service (NPS), the Cave Research Foundation (CRF), and the Lava Beds Natural History Association (NHA), to be signed early in 1998. It states, briefly, that CRF will be responsible for design, fund raising, and construction (in short, almost everything). The NPS will assist with the design, handle environmental clearances, permits, and inspections, grade the site, install utilities connections, and provide general support during all phases of the project. The NHA will be responsible for collection and disbursement of the funds. All parties are very enthusiastic and we look forward to working together on this worthy project.

In April we are planning a kick-off ceremony at Lava Beds. Invitations will be sent to local jv’s, but all are invited. We expect the local press and NPS honchos to be there. After that we have two years to raise the money. Our goal is $150k, and we must raise 80% of that before we can break ground. So, send your tax deductible contributions to: