Survey Notice: Little River Springs in Branford Florida

[adam_Hughes]

Survey Notice by the NSS-CDS:

Today was the first day of what will likely be a multi-year long project by the NSS-CDS to completely re-survey and re-map Little River Springs in Branford Florida.

All survey and cartography methods will be non-invasive, and should not be a detriment to regular cave traffic. With that said, we are asking the cave diving community to please respect, and not alter, modify, or disturb any permanently installed navigation equipment such as lines, arrows, survey station markers, and silt stakes.

Upon completion of this project, the NSS-CDS will have full rights to the map and will publish/sell with 100% of the proceeds going to support cave conversation, research, and exploration.

If at anytime there are questions, comments, or concerns, please contact me (Adam Hughes) by phone (561-704-3038) or by email ([email protected]).

Thank you all for your cooperation!

Adam Hughes
NSS-CDS Operations Manager

[FW]

Thanks for doing this Adam.

[Kelly Jessop]

Great job Adam

[Jim Wyatt]

Cool stuff Adam....I look forward to an accurate map of LR.

[DMoore]

If you need any assistance, Adam, don't hesitate to ask.

[rddvet]

Out of curiosity, what stimulates a resurvey and remap on an established system like Little River? The cartographer just wants to make their own map, new technologies make it more accurate (GPS and Mnemo), to establish errors in previous data, or new tunnels being found?

I'm not complaining, a new map of LR would be nice, but what brought about the decision as opposed to other, newer or less explored caves.

[bamafan]

Out of curiosity, what stimulates a resurvey and remap on an established system like Little River? The cartographer just wants to make their own map, new technologies make it more accurate (GPS and Mnemo), to establish errors in previous data, or new tunnels being found?

I'm not complaining, a new map of LR would be nice, but what brought about the decision as opposed to other, newer or less explored caves.

I would guess that if the idea is to sell maps then the tourist caves will have a bigger market than the river caves. As far as accuracy improving I doubt that is the case.

[adam_Hughes]

Out of curiosity, what stimulates a resurvey and remap on an established system like Little River? The cartographer just wants to make their own map, new technologies make it more accurate (GPS and Mnemo), to establish errors in previous data, or new tunnels being found?

I'm not complaining, a new map of LR would be nice, but what brought about the decision as opposed to other, newer or less explored caves.

Great question!

There are a few different reasons it was decided to redo this map. I will do my best in describing them below:

Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with Wes' Map. In fact, I think the thing is a legend. I have his original notes and cartography materials in my possession, and it is clear his LR map was a labor of love. His data is HIGHLY accurate, and with the exception of an obvious cross-section blunder, I am not expecting to many deviations from his plot. His work is solid! There are a few little tunnels here and there that didn't end up on his map, but that had nothing to do with the decision to redo it.

With that said, I do have at least one issue with ALL existing LR maps: mostly relating to perspectives, formats, and scales. Take for instance Wes' map. He had to the reduce the resolution so much to fit the tributary tunnel, which pretty much takes up 80% of the white space, and is a section seldom traveled by the majority of people visiting the cave. Granted that tunnel is highly important in regards to completeness, but because of this scale decision, the section up front was so shrunken down. Made worse with all the overlaying sidemount passage.

I think with the use of color, cutaways, cross sections, and profiles I can tidy things up a bit. And get it to make a lot more sense to the untrained eye. I am sure Wes would have taken the time to do that, but he did not have access to high tech drafting software like we do nowadays. The means to produce that level of work was just not available to him. Some of the ideas I am kicking around include different shades of blue to correspond with depth, so the eye can unconsciously decipher the corkscrew. I have also been tinkering with GIS overlays, and I think it would be cool to add as well (in the white space). These technologies were not readily available to previous map makers. If they were, I know they would have utilized them.

Now, with all that said, the MAIN reason I am redoing Little River? No reason. Just because.

[Troglodyver]

I look forward to the new map.

[rddvet]

Great question!

There are a few different reasons it was decided to redo this map. I will do my best in describing them below:

Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with Wes' Map. In fact, I think the thing is a legend. I have his original notes and cartography materials in my possession, and it is clear his LR map was a labor of love. His data is HIGHLY accurate, and with the exception of an obvious cross-section blunder, I am not expecting to many deviations from his plot. His work is solid! There are a few little tunnels here and there that didn't end up on his map, but that had nothing to do with the decision to redo it.

With that said, I do have at least one issue with ALL existing LR maps: mostly relating to perspectives, formats, and scales. Take for instance Wes' map. He had to the reduce the resolution so much to fit the tributary tunnel, which pretty much takes up 80% of the white space, and is a section seldom traveled by the majority of people visiting the cave. Granted that tunnel is highly important in regards to completeness, but because of this scale decision, the section up front was so shrunken down. Made worse with all the overlaying sidemount passage.

I think with the use of color, cutaways, cross sections, and profiles I can tidy things up a bit. And get it to make a lot more sense to the untrained eye. I am sure Wes would have taken the time to do that, but he did not have access to high tech drafting software like we do nowadays. The means to produce that level of work was just not available to him. Some of the ideas I am kicking around include different shades of blue to correspond with depth, so the eye can unconsciously decipher the corkscrew. I have also been tinkering with GIS overlays, and I think it would be cool to add as well (in the white space). These technologies were not readily available to previous map makers. If they were, I know they would have utilized them.

Now, with all that said, the MAIN reason I am redoing Little River? No reason. Just because.

Good enough for me. I hear of already mapped caves being remapped and often wonder why. Now I know, at least for LR.

I would definitely like to see a better LR map. I think they all are lacking and I think you hit it on the head with perspective/format. The best map is the one on the wall in Cathy's (not sure who's that is), but you can't get them anymore.

Next question:

What is your opinion on including the lines on the map. I personally greatly prefer a map like the Hancock with the lines on it. It gives me an idea of what to expect, but I always plan for what I see on the map not to be there. But often seeing the lines helps get a better understanding of what a tunnel you may have never seen before was or where it goes. Obviously that adds to the work and the lines can change dramatically, so I see the negatives against it. Your thoughts would be interesting (or anyone else's).