Encyclopedia of Caves, Third Edition, provides detailed background information to anyone with a serious interest in caves. This includes students, both undergraduate and graduate, in the earth, biological and environmental sciences, and consultants, environmental scientists, land managers and government agency staff whose work requires them to know something about caves and the biota that inhabit them. Caves touch on many scientific interests in geology, climate science, biology, hydrology, archaeology, and paleontology, as well as more popular interests in sport caving and cave exploration. Case studies and descriptions of specific caves selected for their special features and public interest are also included. This book will appeal to these audiences by providing in-depth essays written by expert authors chosen for their expertise in their assigned subject. - Features 14 new chapters and 13 completely rewritten chapters - Contains beautifully illustrated content, with more than 500 color images of cave life and features - Provides extensive bibliographies that allow readers to access their subject of interest in greater depth

"This is a family story of America's most famous cave explorer who was trapped and died in Sand Cave in 1925. That story has been told many times, but never before has the complete life of Floyd Collins been presented. Floyd's younger brother Homer tells how Floyd was fascinated with caves from his childhood, of his discovery of the famous Crystal Cave on the home property, and of the rescue attempts from the viewpoint of a brother so devoted that his extraordinary efforts to save Floyd were rewarded by his being removed from the premises while others inexperienced in working in caves carried on the unsuccessful attempt. It is a warm story of a man whose love in life was exploring caves, a man who endured his grim death with dignity and pride in his vocation."--Page 4 of cover

The Encyclopedia of Caves and Karst Science contains 350 alphabetically arranged entries. The topics include cave and karst geoscience, cave archaeology and human use of caves, art in caves, hydrology and groundwater, cave and karst history, and conservation and management. The Encyclopedia is extensively illustrated with photographs, maps, diagrams, and tables, and has thematic content lists and a comprehensive index to facilitate searching and browsing.

This book offers readers a thorough introduction to the Dinaric Karst System in Croatia. As the first comprehensive book on the country’s caves and karst, it presents a wealth of fascinating photographs from its karst underground. To date, ca. 12,000 caves and pits have been confirmed in Croatia, approximately 35% of which contain constant groundwater. Knowing the amount, direction and quality of groundwater that has been discovered in caves of the Croatian karst allows us to predict with greater certainty the hydrogeological situation of some karst areas where no special drilling or borehole measurements were performed. In the process of building highways in the country’s karst regions over the last thirty years, thousands of caverns (speleological features without natural entrances) were discovered and thoroughly explored. All of them were geologically mapped, surveyed, and photographed in detail. Extensive research was systematically carried out in Croatian karst regions on sections of roads, highways, cuttings, slides, tunnels, bridge foundations, viaducts, etc., while creating ca. 800 kilometers of highways (such as the Zagreb-Rijeka highway, Zagreb-Split-Dubrovnik highway, Y-Ipsilon of Istria semi-highway, Rijeka-Rupa highway, Zagreb-Zadar semi-highway, and the Rijeka bypass). Some of these caverns contain major chambers like in the “Sveti Rok” tunnel and in some of them, like in the “Vrata” tunnel, it was even necessary to build a bridge. This bridge is the longest one in the world built in a tunnel over a cavern. The book describes this and many more features of the cave exploration of the Dinaric Karst System of Croatia, making it a valuable resource for researchers, engineers, cavers, and all other readers interested in karst.

The International Union of Speleology (Union Internationale de Spéléologie, UIS) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization founded in 1965 in Slovenia (part of former Yugoslavia) on the initiative of the 4th International Congress of Speleology. Since 1953, these congresses are held every four years to promote interaction between academic and technical speleologists of different nationalities and with the purpose of developing and coordinating international speleology in all of its scientific, technical, cultural and economic aspects. The Union consists of member nations with voting rights, and each is represented by a delegate who represents all cavers and speleologists in its country. Until this book, the history of the International Union of Speleology was spread out in the minutes of the meetings and general assemblies, various UIS publications, and the proceedings of its International Congresses. Moreover, much of it was never written and was available only from the memories of past presidents, secretaries and other members of the UIS. In this book, the author presents the purpose of the Union and summarizes all its events through the first 50 years of its existence. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Mednarodna speleološka zveza (Union Internationale de Spéléologie, UIS) je neprofitna, nevladna organizacija, ustanovljena leta 1965 v Sloveniji (v nekdanji Jugoslaviji), na pobudo 4. Mednarodnega speleološkega kongresa. Kongresi so organizirajo na vsake štiri leta že od leta 1949, z namenom spodbujanja sodelovanja med akademskimi in tehničnimi jamarji različnih narodnosti ter z namenom razvijanja in usklajevanju mednarodnega jamarstva iz znanstvenih, tehničnih, kulturnih in ekonomskih vidikov. Zvezo sestavljajo člani z volilno pravico, vsako državo pa zastopajo delegati, ki predstavljajo vse jamarje in speleologe v državi. Do te knjige je bila zgodovina Mednarodne speleološke zveze zapisana samo v zapisnikih sestankov, generalnih skupščin in različnih publikacijah ter zbornikih njenih mednarodnih kongresov. Veliko pa sploh ne, bilo je samo v spominih preteklih predsednikov, tajnikov in drugih upravnih članov UIS-a. V tej knjigi avtor povzema vse dogodke in namen zveze skozi 50 let njenega obstoja.