[Nmcaver] WCN news - 31 Jan. 2007.

[Ioannis Zenas]

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 <http://www.zenas.gr/site/home/eng_detail.asp?iData=5561> Karst and cave
scientists to support an Open Access petition.
>From World Caving News http://www.zenas.gr/WCN => 31 Jan. 2007.Dear
Colleaques,I'd like to draw your attention to, and encourage you to join,
the "Petition for guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research
results", directed to the European Commission, opened for joining on January
17, 2007 and already signed by 13,862 individuals and organisations.
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/198-guid.html .
http://www.ec-petition.eu . The petition is sponsored by a consortium of
European organisations -- JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee, UK),
SURF (Netherlands), SPARC Europe, DFG (Deutsches Forschungsgemeinschaft,
Germany), DEFF (Danmarks Elektroniske Fag- og Forskningsbibliotek,
Denmark),to demonstrate support for the policy of providing Open Access to
research results on the part of the European and worldwide research
community. Signatures may be added by individual researchers or universities
and research institutions.This is an important part of an active ongoing
global movement for free and open access to research results. I think that
the principles of Open Access to scientific information are particularly
important for the karst/cave community. This is because much of studies in
our area is being done by researchers and explorers which are not
necessarily affiliated with major scientific institutions capable to pay for
access to research results.. much of which were produced by publicly-funded
or voluntary-driven projects. This problem is particularly severe for
scholars in countries wherefunding for science is not very abundant (in
fact, georgaphically, the most of the world).I feel that karst and cave
researchers may have many reasons to actively support the Open Access
initiatives.Best wishes!Sincerely,--Alexander Klimchouk. 

 

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 <http://www.zenas.gr/site/home/eng_detail.asp?iData=5560> Tenglong Cave --
the World Largest Cave.
>From World Caving News http://www.zenas.gr/WCN => 31 Jan. 2007.From the
CAVEDIGGERS mailing list: Professor Yan Zhiwu at China University of
Geosciences expressed in his recent published results of the united
scientific research on the Tenglong cave that, after measured and compared
with data of other large caves in China and in the world, the Tenglong cave
in Lichuan City of Hubei Province covers an area of 230,000km2 and a volume
of 15,750,000m3, being the world largest cave at present. (...)Read more:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cavediggers/message/5057 

 

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 <http://www.zenas.gr/site/home/eng_detail.asp?iData=5562> Did humans wipe
out Australia's big beasts?
>From World Caving News http://www.zenas.gr/WCN => 31 Jan. 2007.To animals
unfortunate enough to fall in, it was a death trap. To palaeontologists, it
was a sensational discovery. Now the first detailed analysis of a
spectacular cache of fossilised prehistoric "marsupial lions", giant wombats
and kangaroos, owls and parrots discovered in a cave in Australia suggests
that humans killed off the continent's megafauna.The cache, found in the
Nullarbor Plain in south-central Australia, contains fossils of 69 species
of mammal, bird and reptile, and includes many complete skeletons, including
the first of a marsupial lion (see right). There are also eight species of
kangaroo that had never been recorded before.The site was discovered by
cavers in 2002, but its size and depth - 20 to 70 metres below the desert -
means that it has taken a team led by Gavin Prideaux of the Western
Australian Museum in Perth four years to collect and analyse the
fossils.Source and details:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325884.200?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg
19325884.200 

 

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Worldwide Caving News 
 <http://www.zenas.gr/WCN> http://www.zenas.gr/WCN

 

 

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