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AMCS ACTIVITIES NEWSLETTER Number 25 May 2002 The AMCS Activities Newsletter is published by the Association for Mexican Cave Studies, a Project of the National Speleological Society. The AMCS is an informal, nonprofit group dedicated to the exploration, study, and conservation of the caves of Mexico. The Activities Newsletter seeks articles and news items on all Front cover significant exploration and research activities in the caves of Mexico. The editor may be contacted at the address below or Humberto Delgrado at [email protected]. Text and graphics may be submit- among the giant selenite ted on paper, or consult the editor for acceptable formats crystals in the mine at for electronic submission. Exceptional color photographs for Naica, Chihuahua. the covers are also sought. They need not pertain to articles in Photo by Carlos Lazcano. the issue, but the original slide or negative must be available for professional scanning. Back cover This issue was edited by Bill Mixon, with help from Maureen Cavanaugh, Ramón Espinasa, Sergio Sanchez-Armass, and Diving gear inside the Jack “Solo” White. Infiernillo entrance to Sistema Purificación. All previous issues of the Activities Newsletter are available, Photo by Bill Stone. as are various other publications on the caves of Mexico. Con- tact [email protected], see www.amcs-pubs.org, or write the address below. ASSOCIATION FOR MEXICAN CAVE STUDIES BOX 7672 AUSTIN, TEXAS 78713 www.amcs-pubs.org © 2002 AMCS All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America AMCS ACTIVITIES NEWSLETTER NUMBER 25 CONTENTS 4 authors’ addresses 5 Mexico News 18 long and deep caves lists 20 deep pits list 21 Cerro Rabón 1995–2000 Karlin Meyers 34 Tabasco 2001 Bob Stucklen with a contribution by Jim Pisarowicz 40 The Exploration of Sistema Ox Bel Ha Bil Phillips 47 Where Does the Sewage Go? Patricia Beddows 53 2001 InnerSpace Odyssey Expedition Bev Shade and Bill Stone with contributions by Jason Mallinson and Rick Stanton 72 Cueva de los Cristales Carlos Lazcano Sahagún 78 A New Map of Sac Actun, Quintana Roo Bil Phillips 81 Searching for Caves near El Cielo, Tamaulipas Gerald Moni 95 Recent Field Investigations of Blind Astyanax Jean Krejca 101 The Long Crawl Terri Treacy 104 The Black Hole of Coahuila Peter Sprouse 106 Mixtlancingo: The River of the Underworld Ramón Espinasa-Pereña 114 Grutas de los Ríos San Jeronimo and Chontalcuatlan Chris Lloyd 119 Accident Report: Resumidero La Joya, Guerrero Ramón Espinasa-Pereña 122 Zacatón Update Marcus Gary 124 Cave-Rescue Courses in Mexico Antonio Aguirre Alvárez with a contribution by John Pint 126 The Yucatan Deep Speleological Dive Team Andreas Matthes 130 Some Quintana Roo Diving Adventures Fred Devos and Christophe Le Maillot 135 Proyecto Espeleológico Sierra Oxmolón Jerry Fant 146 Filo de Caballo, Guerrero Ramón Espinasa-Pereña AMCS ACTIVITIES NEWSLETTER NUMBER 25 AUTHORS IN THIS ISSUE Antonio Aguirre Alvárez Christophe Le Maillot David Roemer Leon García 735-2 PO Box 14 Carlsbad Caverns National Park Barrio de San Miguelito Puerto Aventuras, Quintana Roo 77750 3225 National Parks Highway San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí 78330 Mexico Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220 Mexico [email protected] [email protected] Patricia Beddows Chris Lloyd Carlos Lazcano Sahagún Carbonate Processes and Palaeo- Teotehuacan 1661 Virginia 2202 environments Group Pinar de la Calma Jardines del Santaurio University of Bristol Zapopan, Jalisco 54080 Chihuahua, Chihuahua 31280 Bristol BS8 1SS Mexico Mexico United Kingdom [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Andreas Matthes Bev Shade Fred Devos PO Box 397 8427 Old Lockhart Road PO Box 14 Playa Del Carmen, Quintana Roo 77710 Muldoon, Texas 78949 Puerto Aventuras, Quintana Roo 77750 Mexico [email protected] Mexico [email protected] [email protected] Peter Sprouse Karlin Meyers PO Box 8424 Ramón Espinasa Pereña Neusatzweg 13 Austin, Texas 78713 Ingenieros No 29 Binningen CH-4102 [email protected] Col. Escandón Switzerland Mexico, D. F. 11800 [email protected] Bill Stone Mexico 18912 Glendower Road [email protected] Gerald Moni Gaithersburg, Maryland 20879 2330 Rader Ridge Road [email protected] Jerry Fant Antioch, Tennessee 37013 21 Gold Rush Circle [email protected] Bob Stucklen Wimberly, Texas 78676 3349 Chestnut Avenue [email protected] Bil Phillips Loveland, Colorado 80538 Speleotech [email protected] Marcus Gary PO Box 153 300 West Mockingbird Lane Tulúm, Quintana Roo 77780 Terri Treacy Austin, Texas 78745 Mexico 2993 Dutch Ridge Road [email protected] Carbondale, Illinois 62901 John Pint [email protected] Jean Krejca [email protected] 4806 Savorey Lane Austin, Texas 78744 Jim Pisarowicz [email protected] 343 North 9 Street Custer, South Dakota 57730 [email protected] 4 AMCS ACTIVITIES NEWSLETTER NUMBER 25 MEXICO NEWS Compiled by Bill Mixon on the highway to Ojinaga. The en- fun, and it is complicated enough CHIHUAHUA trance is a little above the actual that you never take the same route At the end of 2000, the govern- drain. The collapse that gives the through it twice. Every loop had ment of the city of Chihuahua cave its name leads to a wide, de- knee-deep flowing water, and one opened to the public the famous scending gallery about 100 meters caver had his pack float away while Cueva de Nombre de Dios, close long, with some stalactites. The he was reading the instruments. to the city at the edge of the neigh- floor is mostly breakdown that re- Another team recovered it several borhood with the same name. The quires careful movement. Near the hundred meters downstream. cave was well known in the city and end, there’s a bat roost full of guano, After completing the maze, all frequently visited by small groups. and at the end there’s a large, mud- five teams leapfrogged down the During the development of the covered collapse. Between the canyon passage, where the stream cave, it was explored and surveyed. blocks, they found a pit 5.7 meters tumbled down several short water- It is almost 2 kilometers long and is deep that passes into a bed of white falls. At the point where we stopped, 95 meters deep. Now there are two gypsum, making it very pretty. Be- the cave continues, but there is a show caves in the state. Five years low is a short walk to a crawlway low airspace that will be better done ago, Cueva de Coyame, about 140 about 10 meters long that leads to in drier times. Source: Peter Sprouse. kilometers from Chihuahua on the 20 or 30 meters more of mud- highway to Ojinaga, was opened. floored passage to a sump. Other During Thanksgiving weekend There are plans to open Cueva del caves in the area include Cueva del 2001, a return was made to Sótano Diablo, near Parral in the southern Macho, around 60 meters long, de Amezcua. The cave was pushed end of the state. Source: Carlos Cueva de las Indias, and Cueva del on two fronts, upstream and down- Lazcano. Puerto, which has a narrow en- stream. Two dives downstream trance with a lot of air movement. pushed through approximately 150 During the period 1995–2001, Source: Carlos Lazcano. meters of underwater passage. Carlos Lazcano made numerous Upstream, beyond previously ex- trips to the northern part of the Si- COAHUILA plored sumps 1 and 2 and the 200 erra Tarahumara, mainly to the On June 17, 2001, nineteen cavers meters of boot-sucking mud be- Madera area. He systematically ex- from Austin and San Antonio, tween them, survey continued plored canyons such as those of the Texas, surveyed El Abra to 1764 through virgin sump 3 to roughly Río Chico and the Huapoca, deeper meters, making it the longest in 800 meters of walking borehole. A than the Grand Canyon of Arizona, Coahuila. This cave is located on a blind catfish that had been marked and he located more than a hundred large ranch in the Sierra del Burro, in June 1998 was recaptured between caves with adobe structures from in the floor of a large canyon. This sumps 3 and 4. Other recapture data the thousand-year-old, extinct was the third survey trip to the cave. were obtained at the sumps in the Paquimé culture. Results of the in- The hole in the canyon floor drops main room, and a dozen new fish vestigations may be published as an into a stream, which was a rushing were marked. Isopods were col- AMCS Bulletin. Source: Carlos river that came halfway up the log lected for genetic studies. While the Lazcano. ladder because of a recent rain. By divers were pushing the cave, other the next day, the level had dropped, cavers found and mapped three In August 2000, Carlos Lazcano, and five survey teams entered the other pits in the area. Source: Jean Claude Chabert, and Nicky Boullier cave. One found an upstream sump Krejca in Texas Caver, December explored El Hundido, a wide drain after only 50 meters. The rest went 2001. for a large valley near the mining downstream to continue mapping community of La Perla, about one in the maze area, where exploration The Italian cavers of the La Venta hundred kilometers from Camargo had ended in April. The maze was Associazione Culturale Esplorazioni 5 AMCS ACTIVITIES NEWSLETTER NUMBER 25 to another sump. A high, overflow passage was found that led to a chamber with two pit leads. Rigging the one with the sound of water at the bottom, we rejoined the stream and followed it past a near-sump to a large passage where a bigger stream came in. The combined wa- ters enter a final sump filled with very active cave-adapted fish (Rhamdia?).