After 11 Years, Excavation of Persistence Cave Finally Begins
June 7, 2015 2:12 PM   Subscribe

Untouched cave in South Dakota to provide clues to history The cave's location has been kept secret since its discovery in 2004. Now, it is finally being excavated and its contents catalogued.
posted by Michele in California (17 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
The weirdest thing is: why was Werner Herzog in the cave WHEN THEY DISCOVERED IT?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:04 PM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]


Herzog had been trying to persuade the revenant Klaus Kinski to participate in an adaptation of "Ted the Caver."
posted by detachd at 3:15 PM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]


[derail]Still marveling at the article URL: Fox News has a SCIENCE section?!?[/derail]
posted by twsf at 3:43 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


A Science section that barely mentioned a significant discovery: they found some professional spelunkers!
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:55 PM on June 7, 2015


Fox News has a SCIENCE section?!?

Must be a know-your-enemy kind of thing for them . . .
posted by jamjam at 4:02 PM on June 7, 2015


My recollection: Very often, Fox News science articles are lifted wholesale from other sites, which get linked back to. Much to my surprise, in this case, this was the best written of the paltry few articles I could find and it seems to be original, as far as I could tell.

Though I turned 50 in the wee hours of this morning, so my memory may be officially going at this point.
posted by Michele in California at 4:02 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


HAPPY BURTHDAY MIC HOPE YOU HAD SOMe 🎂
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:22 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


I was a bit surprised to learn that pine martens had never before been seen in South Dakota, as they can be found a couple states east.
posted by mr. digits at 5:08 PM on June 7, 2015


My recollection: Very often, Fox News science articles are lifted wholesale from other sites, which get linked back to. Much to my surprise, in this case, this was the best written of the paltry few articles I could find and it seems to be original, as far as I could tell.

It's just an AP wire story, Fox isn't the only place that posted it.
posted by jason_steakums at 5:28 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


Also, Wind Cave is well worth the visit if you're ever in the area, really cool and the tour is very good.
posted by jason_steakums at 5:32 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


As mentioned in the article, Persistence Cave is neighbor to, and possibly connected to, Wind Cave. It's a really neat phenomenon to feel the air movement of a cave breathing.
posted by yesster at 5:32 PM on June 7, 2015


And they're both not too far from Jewel Cave, the 3rd longest cave in the world. According to the wikipedia article, the explored areas of Jewel Cave account for only 2% of the estimated total air volume of the cave. So, it's a big one.
posted by yesster at 5:37 PM on June 7, 2015


If you're at all into geology, the Black Hills has so much cool stuff.
posted by jason_steakums at 5:40 PM on June 7, 2015


Officials believe it could be very large because of the direction and speed of the wind that blows from its only known entrance.

Anyone know how this works? I can see high wind speed = large air volume being pushed through a narrow entrance, but how would direction come into play?
posted by bismol at 9:17 PM on June 7, 2015


bismol, I don't have my copy of The Jewel Cave Adventure here, but I think I can remember how the wind works.

The cave blows air out when the barometric pressure outside drops. This is because the air inside the cave is still at a higher pressure, so it exhales, until eventually the air pressures equalize. Similarly, when the outside barometric pressure increases, the cave "inhales" and air rushes in. If a cave is small, it doesn't take long for the wind to stop moving because all the air in the cave comes to be at the same pressure as outside. But if your cave is still blowing out when the barometric pressure outside is going up (or vice versa), that means there's a lot of air in there, so much that it's taking days and days to equalize -- and that means a lot of cave.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:31 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


Large caves "breathe" more than small ones, because of the difference in air pressure between the inside and outside of the cave, and I suppose if the in/out direction of the wind coincides with high/low air pressure outside of the cave you can assume that it's a pretty large cave system and not just wind from outside the cave blowing through some entrance you aren't aware of or something (but that's just a guess, I dunno).
posted by jason_steakums at 10:31 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


[derail]Still marveling at the article URL: Fox News has a SCIENCE section?!?[/derail]
posted by twsf


Well, the quality of the reporting is very Fox-like. There is no institution named Eastern Tennessee University. Dr. Mead is a professor at East Tennessee State University, commonly called ETSU.
posted by workerant at 6:57 AM on June 8, 2015


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