Where to get cave maps

PDF files and external links will open in a new window. You can also browse the best-selling Jewel Cave maps and guidebooks on Amazon. Naturally, we wonder where do all the passages lead? This is especially true in new, never before discovered, areas of Mammoth Cave.

Each year, volunteers from the Cave Research Foundation come to the park to map newly discovered passages, to help us learn just how far it stretches. But how do they go about mapping the cave? To figure out how the passage lies underground, survey teams generally use.

However, survey tape is only so long and lasers cannot bend around corners so survey data must be collected from station to station. A station is just a point in the passage where data is taken. When you link several of these stations, or points, together it looks something like playing connect the dots.

Some passages are huge, and others are very small, so passage dimensions are measured at each station. Cave passages may have interesting features such as rock piles, cracks, artifacts or formations, so the surveyor sketches these features, along with the entire passage, to scale in the survey book along with measurments that are collected.

Passage shapes also vary, so at almost every station a cross section of the cave is drawn. This shows what the cave looks like if you were standing in it, looking down the passage. In many cases, a running profile is also plotted on the sketch, that shows what the passage looks like when viewed from the side. The process is a little complicated and takes practice, but working as a team helps to get the job done. Typically, one person sets stations, another reads instruments, and a third person keeps the survey book with the data and sketch information.

Then, as a team, the group defines a segmented line, from station to station, and describes the cave around that line. After the survey data is gathered it is time to turn it into a cave map.

Nowadays, people enter the data into a computer program that will automatically perform the math that ultimately determines a line plot for a cave. This massive underground waterfall has been a family favorite for travelers for over 85 years. Home Cave Directory West. Learn About Caves. Material For Teachers Educational Links. About the NCA. This vision will be achieved through the collective efforts of individuals, traditional caving clubs and the emerging on-line communities. Every contribution will build on what has gone before, and in turn will be built upon by those that follow.

Do not venture underground unless you have the necesssary knowledge, experience and equipment to do so safely.