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John Alan Glennon (born September 24, 1970) is an American geographer and explorer. His work has been mapping and describing caves and geysers.
In 1996, Glennon and Jon Jasper discovered an entrance to the Martin Ridge Cave System, Kentucky, and explored connections to nearby Jackpot and Whigpistle Caves (Groves, C.G. 1998). The combined cave system is 51 kilometers (32 mi) long (Gulden, B. 2005). The cave is hydrologically connected to Mammoth Cave---the world's longest cave (Quinlan J.F. and Ray, J. 1989). Glennon also was involved in the discovery of one of the largest cave chambers in Kentucky (Yonker, R. 2003).
In 2002, Glennon led an American expedition to El Tatio Geyser Field, Chile. The team produced the first comprehensive inventory and description of the geysers' behaviors. The resulting report concluded that the site was the world's third largest geyser field (Glennon, J.A. and Pfaff, R.M. 2003).
With Dr. Chris Groves, president of the Cave Research Foundation (2004-2006), Glennon cofounded HERI in 1999. The institute's mission is to study the environmental and geologic aspects of caves and karst landscapes. Headquartered at Western Kentucky University, HERI's major scientific focus has been on the karst issues of China.
Glennon was a geography Ph.D. student of Dr. Michael Frank Goodchild at the University of California, Santa Barbara and received his PhD in 2013. Goodchild is a pioneer in Geographic Information Science and discoverer of Castleguard Cave, Canada's longest cave. Glennon received a Master of Science in Geoscience from Western Kentucky University, 2001, and Bachelor of Science in Park Administration from Texas A&M University, 1994.
For his cave discoveries in Kentucky, Alan has been commissioned in the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels.
A geyser is a spring with an intermittent discharge of water ejected turbulently and accompanied by steam. The formation of geysers is fairly rare, and is caused by particular hydrogeological conditions that exist only in a few places on Earth.
Mammoth Cave National Park is a national park of the United States in south-central Kentucky. It encompasses portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest known cave system in the world. The park's 52,830 acres (21,380 ha) are located primarily in Edmonson County, with small areas extending eastward into Hart and Barren counties. The Green River runs through the park, with a tributary called the Nolin River feeding into the Green just inside the park.
Green River is a city in Emery County, Utah, United States. The population was 847 at the 2020 census.
El Tatio is a geothermal field with many geysers located in the Andes Mountains of northern Chile at 4,320 metres (14,170 ft) above mean sea level. It is the third-largest geyser field in the world and the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. Various meanings have been proposed for the name "El Tatio", including "oven" or "grandfather". The geothermal field has many geysers, hot springs, and associated sinter deposits. These hot springs eventually form the Rio Salado, a major tributary of the Rio Loa, and are a major source of arsenic pollution in the river. The vents are sites of populations of extremophile microorganisms such as hyperthermophiles, and El Tatio has been studied as an analogue for the early Earth and possible past life on Mars.
Patricia ("Pat") P. Crowther, later known as Patricia P. Wilcox, is an American cave explorer and cave surveyor active in the 1960s and early 1970s. She also worked as a computer programmer.
Stephen Bishop was an American cave explorer and self-taught geologist known for being one of the first people to explore and map Mammoth Cave in the U.S. state of Kentucky. Mammoth Cave is regarded as the longest cave system in the world and Bishop's map of the cave, hand-drawn from memory off-site in 1842, was included in a book published in 1844. It was regarded as the authoritative map of the cave system for over four decades. Bishop was enslaved and worked as a guide at Mammoth for approximately 19 years. He was freed by manumission the year before his death.
Michael Frank Goodchild is a British-American geographer. He is an Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. After nineteen years at the University of Western Ontario, including three years as chair, he moved to Santa Barbara in 1988, as part of the establishment of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, which he directed for over 20 years. In 2008, he founded the UCSB Center for Spatial Studies.
The Woodville Karst Plain Project or WKPP, is a project and organization that maps the underwater cave systems underlying the Woodville Karst Plain. This plain is a 450-square-mile (1,200 km2) area that runs from Tallahassee, Florida, U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico and includes numerous first magnitude springs, including Wakulla Springs, and the Leon Sinks Cave System, the longest underwater cave in the United States. The project grew out of a cave diving research and exploration group established in 1985 and incorporated in 1990.
(Big) Bone Cave is a cave located in Van Buren County, Tennessee, in the community of Bone Cave that is named after it. It is notable both for its history and current recreational use. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a designated National Natural Landmark. It is a 400-acre (161.9 ha) State Natural Area managed by Rock Island State Park. It is named for the discovery of the bones of a giant ground sloth in 1811. The cave was operated as a saltpeter mine, notably during the War of 1812 and the American Civil War. A variety of natural remains and human artifacts have been well preserved in the dry atmosphere of the cave. The cave is the 10th longest mapped cave in Tennessee.
The Hölloch is a 200.4 km (124.5 mi) long cave in the municipality Muotathal in Switzerland. In addition to being the second longest cave in Europe and the 11th longest of the world, it is also notable for having a depth of 1,033 m (3,389 ft). The Hölloch is an example of a karst cave system.
Roger W. Brucker is an American cave explorer and author of books about caves. He is most closely associated with Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the world's longest cave, which he has been exploring and writing about since 1954.
Sistema Sac Actun is an underwater cave system situated along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula with passages to the north and west of the city of Tulum. Discovery of a connection to Sistema Dos Ojos in 2018 made it the longest known underwater cave system. As of January 2023, it is the second longest underwater cave system in the world, only surpassed by Sistema Ox Bel Ha.
The Whigpistle Cave System is a large cave near Mammoth Cave, in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The system, composed of the interconnected Whigpistle, Martin Ridge, and Jackpot Caves, has been mapped to over 55 kilometers (34 mi), and is currently the United States' thirteenth-longest cave.
Great Onyx Cave is a cave located in Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, United States. The National Park Service offers a commercial tour of the cave.
Cold-water geysers are geysers that have eruptions whose water spurts are propelled by CO2-bubbles, instead of the hot steam which drives the more familiar hot-water geysers: The gush of a cold-water geyser is identical to the spurt from a freshly-opened bottle of soda pop. Cold-water geysers look quite similar to their steam-driven counterparts; however, their CO2-laden water often appears whiter and more frothy.
Cedar Sink is a vertical-walled large depression or sinkhole in the ground, located in Edmonson County, Kentucky and contained within and managed by Mammoth Cave National Park. The sinkhole measures 300 feet (91.4 m) from the top sandstone plateau to the bottom of the sink and was caused by collapse of the surface soil. The landscape is karst topography, which means the region is influenced by the dissolution of soluble rocks. Sinkholes, caves, and dolines typically characterize these underground drainage systems. Cedar Sink has a bottom area of about 7 acres (2.8 ha) and has more fertile soil compared to the ridgetops.
The Fisher Ridge Cave System is a cave system located in Hart County, Kentucky, United States, near Mammoth Cave National Park. As of November 2019 it had been mapped to a length of 130.001 miles (209.216 km), making it the fifth-longest cave in the United States and the tenth-longest in the world.
Patricia Kambesis is an American caver, cartographer and educator.
Robert Gulden, nicknamed Bob, was a prominent cave surveyor and cartographer. From 1976 until his death, Gulden kept the world's best-known database of long and deep caves.