Speleological and Karst Glossary of Florida and the Caribbean

Compiled by Sandra Poucher and Rick Copeland.  2006. 196pp. 

 

A growing community of scientists, land-management decision makers, and cavers are concerned about the protection of natural resources and want to share research among themselves. But few of them are fluent in each discipline’s jargon, and cavers and geologists in particular who want to share their discoveries find it difficult to understand each other. Sandra Poucher and Rick Copeland have created this comprehensive karst glossary to correct discrepancies in communications among geologists and biologists, hydrologists and divers, cavers and speleologists, thereby enabling researchers to speak a common language. 

 

            Cavers and cave divers are passionate about mastering the language to communicate their finds and understand the research of others. Speleologists (cave scientists) are eager to understand and apply cavers’ discoveries to their work in the geology, biology, water flow, and other scientific aspects of caves. This multidisciplinary volume, featuring extensive reference materials, is the only one to focus on Floridian and Caribbean karst features. The highly focused result of a dynamic team of scientists, cavers, and cave divers who have sorted through the myriad of terms and definitions, this glossary is essential to geologists, hydrologists, biologists, hydrogeologists, and private businesses dealing with the study of groundwater, karst and/or treatment of sinkholes, land-management decision makers, and speleologists.