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| This article possibly contains original research .(January 2022) |
John Alan Glennon (born September 24, 1970) is an American geographer and explorer. His work has been mapping and describing caves and geysers.
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| This article possibly contains original research .(January 2022) |
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 characterized by an intermittent discharge of water ejected turbulently and accompanied by steam. As a fairly rare phenomenon, the formation of geysers is due to particular hydrogeological conditions that exist only in a few places on Earth. Generally all geyser field sites are located near active volcanic areas, and the geyser effect is due to the proximity of magma. Generally, surface water works its way down to an average depth of around 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) where it contacts hot rocks. The resultant boiling of the pressurized water results in the geyser effect of hot water and steam spraying out of the geyser's surface vent.
Mammoth Cave National Park is an American national park in west-central Kentucky, encompassing portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest cave system known in the world.
Hart County is a county located in the south central portion of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. As of the 2010 census, the population was 18,199. Its county seat is Munfordville. Hart County is a prohibition or dry county.
Green River is a city in Emery County, Utah. The population was 952 at the 2010 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.
William Floyd Collins, better known as Floyd Collins, was an American cave explorer, principally in a region of Central Kentucky that houses hundreds of miles of interconnected caverns within Mammoth Cave National Park, the longest cave system in the world. In the early 20th century, in an era known as the Kentucky Cave Wars, commercial cave owners and explorers in Kentucky entered into a bitter competition to exploit the bounty of caves for commercial profit from tourists, who paid to see the caves. In 1917, Collins had discovered and commercialized Crystal Cave on Flint Ridge. But the cave was remote and visitors were few. Collins had an ambition to find another cave he could open to the public closer to the main roads, and entered into an agreement with a neighbor to open up Sand Cave, a small cave on the neighbor's property. On January 30, 1925, while working to enlarge the small passage in Sand Cave, Collins became trapped in a narrow crawlway 55 feet (17 m) below ground. The rescue operation to save Collins became a national newspaper sensation and one of the first major news stories to be reported using the new technology of broadcast radio.
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.
Dos Ojos is part of a flooded cave system located north of Tulum, on the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. The exploration of Dos Ojos began in 1987 and still continues. The surveyed extent of the cave system is 82 kilometers (51 mi) and there are 28 known sinkhole entrances, which are locally called cenotes. In January 2018, a connection was found between Sistema Dos Ojos and Sistema Sac Actun. The smaller Dos Ojos became a part of Sac Actun, making the Sistema Sac Actun the longest known underwater cave system in the world.
(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, it is also notable for having a depth of 938.6 m (3,079 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 the Sistema Dos Ojos in 2008 made it the longest known underwater cave system.
The Martin Ridge 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.
Sol de Mañana is a geothermal area in Sur Lípez Province in the Potosi Department of south-western Bolivia. It extends over 10 km2, between 4800m and 5000m in altitude.
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 have eruptions similar to those of hot-water geysers, except that CO
2-bubbles drive the eruption instead of steam from the proximity to magma. In cold-water geysers, CO
2-laden water lies in a confined aquifer, in which water and CO
2 are trapped by less permeable overlying strata. This water and CO
2 can escape this strata only in weak regions like faults, joints, or drilled wells. A drilled borehole provides an escape for the pressurized water and CO
2 to reach the surface. The magnitude and frequency of such eruptions depend on various factors such as plumbing depth, CO
2 concentrations, aquifer yield etc. The column of water exerts enough pressure on the gaseous CO
2 so that it remains in the water in small bubbles. When the pressure decreases due to formation of a fissure, the CO
2 bubbles expand. This expansion displaces the water and causes the eruption. Cold-water geysers may look quite similar to their steam-driven counterparts; however, often CO
2-laden water is more white and frothy. The best known of these are probably Saratoga Springs, New York, or Crystal Geyser, near Green River, Utah. There are also three cold-water geysers in Germany, named Wallender Born, Wehr Geyser and Andernach Geyser ; two in Slovakia, one in the village of Herľany and a very small one in Sivá Brada; and one in Brazil, in the municipality of Caxambu.
Cedar Sink is a vertical-walled large depression, or sinkhole, in the ground, that is 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.