VIII.—The Exploration of Kesh Caves, County Sligo, Ireland

Lava - Tube Caves in the Saddle Butte Area of Malheur County

Biology of the Caves at Sinkhole Flat, Eddy County, New Mexico

Sinkhole Flat, as the name suggests, is a region of relatively few features in southeastern New Mexico (Figure 1). There are a few arroyos and sinkholes. This study area is in the northern Chihuahuan Desert and plants are typical for this desert region which lies at about 1,000 meters elevation. The vegetation consists predominately of grasses, Opuntia, Yucca, Larrea, and Acacia. The caves at S...

Japan’s Exploration of Holes and Caves on the Moon and Mars – Uzume Project

Introduction: In 2009, deep-hole structures were discovered in the Moon’s Marius Hills (Fig.1), Mare Tranquillitatis, and Mare Ingenii in the images acquired by the SELENE cameras aboard Japan’s Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE, nicknamed KAGUYA). They were very similar to several pits on Mars that were discovered in 2007 and reported as possible “skylights” opened on subsurface v...

Encyclopedia of Caves

except in a few extremely arid regions. Figure 1 shows the variety of sources for the water responsible for the development of caves. Most of the caves are dissolved by the movement of groundwater in contemporary drainage basins. In coastal regions, the mixing of fresh groundwater with saltwater produces an aggressive solution that can dissolve out caves. Some caves (for example, the large cave...

Future robotic exploration using honeybee search strategy: Example search for caves on Mars

Autonomous control has an increasing role in Earth and Space based applications. High level autonomy can greatly improve planetary exploration and is, in many cases, essential. It has been suggested during the Mars cave exploration programme, that an effective way to explore a larger surface area would be the use of many, small and fully autonomous robots. However, there are many challenges to ...