Grottan 3

The third issue of this year's Grottan -- Swedish Caver's Association's magazine -- came in mail today.

The main attraction in this issue is Finland's cave historian Ralf Strandell's massive 16-page article on the history of Finnish caving from the 1400s. And that's only "Part I"! It is remarkable how Ralf has managed to find material about cave exploration in old times -- where Finland's rural society did not give much room for research and exploration, and written records were scant. Particularly when the Finnish caves are all quite small. Yet the earliest evidence of caves date back to the early years of the 1400s, coins from that era found from archeological digs, farm or place names referring to caves in maps, etc.

Ralf's article has previously also appeared the Finnish Caver's Association's magazine. If you haven't read Ralf's article, you can get a copy by ordering one from either the Swedish or Finnish association. The Finnish one can be ordered from here: Luola.

Interestingly, the Swedish association is now making all their magazines available online, as all issues from the beginning of time have scanned. I'd love to have this also for the Finnish magazine! Unfortunately, the Swedish site is currently undergoing maintenance, and the member login which would be required for the access isn't working right now.

The other interesting article in this Grottan is about John Mylroie's work on how caves in space might impact what we think of as caves. Ulla Petterson has looked at John's work. To begin with, clearly caves out there are not "subterranean". But what really counts as a cave, would'd earths's molten core count as a cave, it is a liquid-filled cavity after all? :-) And do humans need to be able to access a void in order for us to call it a cave, which would preclude lava bubbles inside rock from being classified as caves? Some definitions of cave discuss of voids filled with air or water, but would vacuum-filled moon caves count? How long does a cave have to last or how big does it need to be in order to count as a cave, does a bullet fired into water create a short-lived cave behind its path?

You can access John's original article from the caves.org page.

See more caving stories at Planetcaver.net, and all Planetskier and Planetcaver stories at Blogspot and TGR! See also my cave map that runs the Psgeo software that has now been open sourced! This article and photos are (c) 2020 by Jari Arkko, with the original magazines and books pictured being copyright of the respective publications, of course. All rights reserved.