I finally called BS on that 'caves are all mapped' claim

My geology professor in Tucson swore the Sonoran caves were fully surveyed by 2010, but I just stumbled onto a 2019 thermal scan showing three unmapped chambers near Kartchner Caverns. The survey team missed them because they only looked during dry season when the entrances were hidden by runoff. How do we even know what's really out there if the people in charge only check when it's convenient?

3 comments

3 Comments

blairtaylor11d ago

My buddy found a whole room nobody knew about just by crawling behind a waterfall.

daniel_walker11d ago

Dropped my flashlight in a cave once, took me an hour to find it, so I guess I'm part of the mapping problem.

the_parker11d ago

Yeah, I used to think cave mapping was overblown too, honestly. But then I read about that survey team that got lost for 48 hours because nobody had charted the side tunnels, and it really changed my mind about the whole thing. @daniel_walker, you dropping your flashlight is just more proof that we need better systems down there.