Hello there folks
I'm coming up to final year of my degree in Outdoor Studies, around this time of year I must produce a dissertation proposal and I was interested in proposing something cave / speleology related as it has become my pass time interest more than my degree as of late. I was just interested to see or bounce around any interesting current topics or idea's or any advice would be great too see if it is possible for me to do a dissertation on these subjects.

thanks!

rise and fall (and rise again) of clubs vs the independent caver??

SamT said:

rise and fall (and rise again) of clubs vs the independent caver??

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Interesting thx

Could club only permits be the cause of the demise of the independant caver?

Is this a re-occurring issue?

I suggest the rise in club websites might be revitalising the club caver.

well...

* you could look at how on-line forums such as this have affected the sport (if they have..)

* access is always fun:  "has the introduction of the CROW for walkers had an impact upon other sports, such as caving,
and is such CROW-type legislation likely/desirable/undesirable/attainable in the future". 

* on club vs independent caving, you could also look at how
the balance between learning via a club, commercially or independently has/is changing 

what do you actually want to spend your dissertation time doing?  are you keen on spending it oustside/down caves, or trawling through forums and emailing/PMing people?

a dissertation takes a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG time if you do a topic where the actuall research for it is dull.

how about studying the issue of gates.....      (    i'm running and hiding now)

How long does the dissertation have to be? So far the suggestions have been 'sociological', as it were; is  that what you want, or do you want something more 'scientific'?

ogof addict said:

what do you actually want to spend your dissertation time doing?  are you keen on spending it oustside/down caves, or trawling through forums and emailing/PMing people?

a dissertation takes a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG time if you do a topic where the actuall research for it is dull.

how about studying the issue of gates.....      (    i'm running and hiding now)

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Hahaha Gates it is ! Well yeh of course im keen enough to spend time outside or especially down caves (As thats what I enjoy doing), trawling through forums not so much but its nice to get opinions off fellow cavers but without a doubt im gonna have to trawl through journals and books and research data.

Fulk said:

How long does the dissertation have to be? So far the suggestions have been 'sociological', as it were; is  that what you want, or do you want something more 'scientific'?

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The Dissertation is or should be around 10,000 words. I would like it to be more scientific for example:  Hydrological controls on trace metal fluxes from abandoned metal mines. I wanted to do it on radon gas in giants hole but apparently it was done by a student on my course a few years back.

Thanks for the input so far its much appreciated!

When I did my Disci at Worcester UNI outdoor Recreation, I looked at a feasibility's study for a climbing wall award similar to that of the BCU, which at the time didn't exist!  The MLTE, and the BMC were not keen, but that is another story.

Another thing I looked at was wear and tear on climbing routes by climbers and groups.  We had to develop are own scale for measuring polish on the rocks.  This is perhaps something you could look at for caving, with a comparative study with somewhere that gets a lot of group traffic like Long Churns in the Dales, to somewhere less popular, or only accessible by SRT.

Zaphod

Another thing I looked at was wear and tear on climbing routes by climbers and groups.  We had to develop are own scale for measuring polish on the rocks.  This is perhaps something you could look at for caving, with a comparative study with somewhere that gets a lot of group traffic like Long Churns in the Dales, to somewhere less popular, or only accessible by SRT.

Zaphod


Or wear and tear on SRT gear and rope wear, Mr. Mayhew may be able to suggest input :
Serious collation of meterage would be essential,
. a comparison with tech spec'  from manufacturers?
You may even find a suitable footwear other than wellies. :tease:
O. G. 

See the thread 'How do ramps form in caves' for another idea.

Of the top of my head there are a range of opportunities with the dynamic performance of ropes and knots depending in part upon how good your maths is.  And there are almost certainly many more ideas out there.  See http://british-caving.org.uk/equipment/BCRA%20poster%20v4%20fuller.pdf for some of our early work and the latest edition of Speleology for a short investigation which took less than a day of experiments and produced a 2000 word article.  The key problem is not word count but how long you can get away from college to do the experiments on the test rig.  My guess is you would need to spend possibly up to 5 days on the rig with nil / poor maths to much less with degree level maths.  As using the rig requires two people, that might be a problem for you and for my holiday plans for this May.  I will also need to check with colleagues and the owners of the rig but I doubt if that aspect will be a problem.  My contact details are at http://british-caving.org.uk/equipment/080816_R_TEST_FORM.DOC so give me a call if you are interested.  I am out tomorrow night, Wed 6th, but normally in during the day.

The offer also goes for final year engineers / physicists / mathematicians (I have a lovely 2nd order non linear ODE and an apparently new twist on damped simple harmonic motion waiting to be solved - yes I know  ).

I think that ianball 11 makes a very interesting point with his question:

Why is caving such a white mans sport?

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And yet ? I've never been to China, Pakistan, India, Borneo etc., caving or not, but from what I've read I get the distinct impression that the guys there are, indeed, interested in their caves. (Well a proportion of them ? probably  the same proportion as 'White men' in Britain.)

Why is caving such a white mans sport?

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Bit off topic but my hunch is that it is simple demographics, a very, very, very smal percentage of the population go caving, a small percetnage of the population are from ethnic minorities - and only a very small proportion of those live in caving areas.

QED: very,very,very small X very small = pretty much no one.

Not much scope for a dissertation in there (unless I am missing something?)

Fulk said:

I think that ianball 11 makes a very interesting point with his question:

Why is caving such a white mans sport?

Click to expand...

And yet ? I've never been to China, Pakistan, India, Borneo etc., caving or not, but from what I've read I get the distinct impression that the guys there are, indeed, interested in their caves. (Well a proportion of them ? probably  the same proportion as 'White men' in Britain.)

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It is a good question indeed. But the answer, I fear would be very, very non-PC and you could never submit the real answer.

AndyF said:

Fulk said:

I think that ianball 11 makes a very interesting point with his question:

Why is caving such a white mans sport?

Click to expand...

And yet ? I've never been to China, Pakistan, India, Borneo etc., caving or not, but from what I've read I get the distinct impression that the guys there are, indeed, interested in their caves. (Well a proportion of them ? probably  the same proportion as 'White men' in Britain.)

Click to expand...

It is a good question indeed. But the answer, I fear would be very, very non-PC and you could never submit the real answer.

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There is some data on ethnic distribution collected by NCA in the early 2000's as part of the condition of receiving a grant from Sport England. 

(Sigh) - who cares about what proportion of ethnic minority groups go caving. People are people are people. If someone comes caving with me it never enters my head how much melanin they have in their skin, how they like to worship, how much they get paid or whatever. If one of my fellow human beings is interested in caving then they're welcome, full stop. I suspect this is true for most cavers - to me this is one of caving's greatest strengths.

As a general rule we cavers don't get bogged down in this sort of thing (thank goodness). Then again, as Bob points out, sometimes it's (sadly) necessary if there's a chance of some coin going free.

I'd like to think that you choose something actually to do with caving for your dissertation, then it's a useful exercise. 

By the way - girls go caving too you know!