water/dye testing with a difference

[woollydigger]

I am trying to bypass unsafe choke which would need 200 plus meters of scaffolding to make 100% safe.
The problem which I've got i need to check where mini stream is coming out into the chamber but because it's making the dig into liquid mud.

my ideas

1. do as the old gold miners wash the mud away ( which can be done) but could wash out to much

2. make a pond at dig add fluoresceine and watch where it comes out.

I have only about 1m to trace before a drop of 7.5 m i need to pin point where so i can temp build a platform and stop from dropping down.
any other suggestion ?

looking up toward dig

 

[Leclused]

Make a pond with a removable dam. Let the pond fill with water. Then set a person(s) on the look out in the room and open the dam creating a flush.

Check in the room where an abrupt change of water volume is detected. This can only be done when you have enough space in the room. If the risk of flooding the room exists you can't put a person in the room.

As an extra you can use a small floater attached on a thin rope that you flush through or flush some biodegradable floating small objects (preferable white) that can be detected on the other side in the chamber. Do not use polystyrene pellets because these will show up years and years after the test.

 

[Pitlamp]

For such a short trace a bit of milk can be quite effective.

 

[woollydigger]

I think pitlamp's idea is the way to go but using powder milk as i can pond the liquid mud make it into a white soup then hopefully given the very slow flow rate ( 1L per hour) i will be able to see where it's coming out from. it may take awhile but i've a few safety jobs which i'm doing and a new chamber which i've found ( another bypass further into the cave) will keep me going till i see it come through. The cave survey is in Descent 265 p16 if you want to take a look and part of the survey which i'm talking about is in yellow and pink

 

[Cantclimbtom]

Years ago, one summer I spilled a pint of milk in the front passenger footwell of my car, despite best attempts to clean it... after a few warm days the smell was awful.. repeated cleaning wasn't very effective, I just had to wait for the smell to go.

Would milk in a cold environment be a slow motion version of the rotten milk/vomit smell problem?

Maybe you could use some (edit: diluted) leftover white emulsion paint instead. If it never quite washes away you could confuse future amateur geologists by telling them to look out for the Zinc formation

 

[Pitlamp]

Would milk in a cold environment be a slow motion version of the rotten milk/vomit smell problem?

In flowing water, I'd have thought this unlikely due to dilution. But if it does then the resulting smell would confirm the visual result, so it'd be a double win!

(You can tell I'm a "glass half full" person.)

 

[woollydigger]

I was thinking about the smell aswell but i think it's the only eco way to go as so as the bypass has been made it can be washed clean