CAV E SCIENCE NEWS AGI PUBLISHES FOURTH EDITION could compare the words easily and make certain that the cross OF GLOSSARY OF GEOLOGY references are correct. Readers of this review will applaud and smile at the newly The fourth edition of Glossary of Geology, just published augmented definition of spelunker: A journalistic term for by the American Geological Institute (AGI), reflects the dra- caver; what a noncaver calls a caver. matic technolological changes affecting the earth-science pro- Dictionaries generally reflect a perception of current usage, fession. Editor Julia A. Jackson invited more than 100 geo- but sometimes compilers cannot resist nudging usage a bit. science experts to review and update terms and definitions for Cave coraloid has replaced cave coral. I'll be the last to resist the latest edition of the Glossary, including an NSS team of this if it takes hold, but the adjective “cave” of the former speleologists headed by our AGI representative, Harvey usage probably was sufficient to make clear that the term does DuChene. As a result, approximately 3,400 new entries have not refer to reef animals. The word coraloid without the adjec- been added and another 9,000 definitions have been updated in tive is offered as a synonym of cave coraloid, and perhaps the fourth edition, bringing the number of entries to 37,000. those with nimble tongues will find it a useful abbreviation. The revision applies to nearly every discipline in the geo- I am less enamored of a couple of other changes: Cave bub- sciences, including active fields such as carbonate sedimentol- bles have become calcite bubbles, and cave rafts have become ogy, environmental geology and geophysics, geographic infor- calcite rafts. These revisions make little sense, inasmuch as mation systems, global positioning systems, sequence stratig- those speleothems, although usually composed of calcite, are raphy, hydrogeology and hydraulics, marine and coastal geol- in some caves also composed of aragonite, iron minerals, and ogy, organic geochemistry, and paleoecology. The number of phosphate minerals. Similar structures occur in noncave envi- definitions for traditional fields such as seismology, stratigra- ronments, and in those places an ad hoc term such as calcite phy, speleology and karst, structural geology and tectonics, bubble may be appropriate for the specific case. But as desig- paleontology, and igneous petrology has expanded as well. nations for two important classes of speleothems, cave bubbles The fourth edition of the Glossary of Geology can be and cave rafts seem more appropriate general terms. ordered from AGI's Publications Center, P.O. Box 205, For a work of this size, remarkably few misspellings and Annapolis Junction, MD, 20701. Telephone: 301-953-1744; errors in transferring the reviewers’ intentions have crept in. fax: 301-206-9789. ISBN 0-922152-34-9, Hardbound, 800 An exception, however, applies to the term guano. In improv- pages. List price is $110.00 but NSS members may buy it for ing the discussion of cave guano, surficial guano was inadver- $88.00, plus postage and handling. tently dropped, even though the word itself comes from the fossil seabird guano of northern South America, an important REVIEW OF FOURTH EDITION fertilizer material there and on many oceanic islands. OF GLOSSARY OF GEOLOGY. JULIA A. JACKSON (ED.) The numbers of terms in each of the cave categories are Speleology, 301; Karst, 225; and Volcanic Caves, 18. This The American Geological Institute issues a new edition of book is the most exhaustive and authoritative dictionary of the Glossary of Geology about every 10 years. This edition terms in physical speleology and in geology in general. contains 37,000 terms in all fields of geology. Members of the Although the price is high, it will amortize well for geologists, National Speleological Society have traditionally reviewed the because the next edition will not appear until 2007. Those cave terms. William E. Davies began with the 1960 edition, without a need for the entire volume will find a library's copy and Harvey R. DuChene was the chief reviewer of this edition. to be a valuable reference to cave terms. Other acknowledged contributors to speleology and karst George W. Moore, Department of Geosciences, Oregon State terms in this edition were Donald G. Davis, William R. University, Corvallis, OR 97331-5506 Halliday, John E. Mylroie, Arthur N. Palmer, George Veni, and William B. White. REVIEW: CAVE MINERALS OF THE WORLD, SEC- This edition of the Glossary contains 544 terms in the cave OND EDITION (1997). CAROL HILL AND PAOLO FORTI. categories; a significant percentage has been revised, and 140 are new. Some additional cave terms beyond those in the cave The new edition of Cave Minerals of the World looks about categories appear in categories such as archaeology, surveying, the same size as the 1986 version. Inside, however, are nearly soils, geochemistry, and environmental geology. For example, twice as many pages, in smaller print that allows nearly 50% the book includes definitions of the biologic terms troglobite, more material per page. This reflects the explosive increase in troglophile, and trogloxene, which define the degree of adap- knowledge of cave features since then. tation of animals to caves. The book retains some obsolete Soon after the 1986 edition was published, it was clear that words for their historical value, but it has dropped 31 rarely new speleothem discoveries in Lechuguilla Cave alone would used cave terms that appeared in the 3rd edition (1987). merit a significant revision. But that was just the start. During the updating of the book, the editor could print out Accomplished cave mineralogists in places as varied as Brazil, 31 subject categories and numerous subcategories separately Australia, South Africa, and (with the end of the Cold War) from the book's computer file, so that the reviewers for each eastern Europe and Asia - facilitated by increasing ease of Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, December 1997 • 179 CAV E SCIENCE NEWS communication via the Internet - have expanded the cos- “‘frostwork’ for what most people call ‘anthodites’.” He does mopolitan perspective that began with the earlier edition. We not mention that this is a change from the usage in the 1986 can now, for example, compare Lechuguilla Cave with the edition, adopted specifically because people were using Cupp-Coutunn system in Turkmenistan, which has both “anthodite” in conflicting ways. Hill and Forti’s re-definition remarkable similarities and puzzling differences in its deposits. is an effort to get consistent usage and to conform better to Trevor Shaw’s fascinating historical introduction has been original definitions and precedents; that is, to make speleolog- republished largely unchanged from the 1986 one, but extend- ical terminology more like formal scientific nomenclature. I ed by the addition of a section covering non-carbonate miner- approve of that. als. Another of Mixon’s criticisms: “There can be little reason The text is somewhat differently organized in the new edi- except showing off to list 99 references on goethite or 235 ref- tion. In the earlier version, deposits were arranged first by erences about stalactites...I doubt if even a professional miner- mineral class - carbonates, halides, nitrates, etc. - with alogist would bother to seek out the vast majority of the refer- speleothems treated as subcategories under each chemical ences, because most of the total of nearly forty-five hundred class. The 1997 book instead treats speleothems first, alpha- are in literature so gray as to be practically black and obtain- betically by morphological “type,” “subtype,” and “variety,” able, if at all, through inter-library loan from Mars.” Here I followed by a section on the mineral classes, for each of which disagree with Mixon completely. The authors point out that the speleothem types known for that mineral are listed. This Cave Minerals of the World, 2nd Edition is a book for both system is not a universal standard (some speleologists cited cavers and mineralogists. Readers of either class can skip the from the former Soviet Union prefer very different categoriza- references if they want to. But for those who do want to tions based on internal structure), but it is a practical, if some- research a specific feature in depth, this chain of sources is a what arbitrary, approach that aids cavers without laboratory priceless treasure, all the more so because much of the litera- access to recognize and compare features in cave and book. ture is rare. Hill and Forti were able to cite so much of it The “Special Topics” section has been expanded from 12 to because they encouraged input from the contemporary cavers 19 subjects-including, for example, archeology and microbiol- who are making the observations. In another generation, it ogy as related to cave minerals-and some of the original topics, would be much harder for anyone to learn about all of these including color and luminescence of speleothems, have been obscure publications. To posterity, the reference list may well re-written by experts in those fields to bring them up to date. be the most valuable part of Cave Minerals of the World, 2nd In a new section, “Top Ten Caves,” speleologists from Edition. around the world describe the mineralogy of exceptional caves. What faults do I find with the book? Well, the photos are This is not, as the layman might expect, the same thing as “The mostly smaller than those in the 1986 edition, and distressing- Ten Most Beautiful Caves in the World.” Some, like ly few have any scale shown. (On the other hand, there are Lechuguilla, are spectacular, but others, such as Australia’s many more, all in color this time, and the authors advertised to Skipton Lava Cave and Italy’s Alum Cave, are remarkable less get the best ones they could for each feature.) Fig.