Lou Maurice - Explore the Virgin Passages
Thursday of 7th Week - 5th June 8.00pm Christ Church College Lecture Room 1
Lou’s a senior caver and advisor to this year’s university cave expeditions. In March/April 2008 six cavers from Oxford University Cave Club went to Madre de Dios island off the west coast of Chile on an expedition combining adventure, exploration, and science. We accessed this extremely remote wilderness area by yacht through hundreds of miles of uninhabited fjords. With frequent gale force winds and one of the highest rainfall rates in the world Madre de Dios is an extraordinary place with dense temperate rainforest near sea level and dramatic karst landscapes sculpted by wind and rain at higher elevations.
The expedition explored and mapped more than 2 km of new cave passages. The main objective was to find stalagmite samples for climate studies. Madre de Dios island is uniquely placed for such studies because it is the closest known cave-bearing limestone to Antarctica. Records of past changes in temperature locked in the stalagmites are of great significance in climatological studies to investigate abrupt climate events, the linkages between climate changes in Antarctica and the rest of the world, and to predict future climate changes. (Many thanks to Ben Lovett for the photos below)
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