Caving Events

USA 2021

• January 11, 2021 - Explorers Club Presentation: Underwater Ice Age Discoveries Beneath Yucatan - On-line.
  Streaming live - Monday, January 11 at 7:00 p.m. USA Eastern (New York) Time - on explorers.org, our YouTube channel, and our Facebook Live!
        Join our host, celebrated cave diver Jill Heinerth, for a fascinating evening learning about underwater caves and prehistoric mining activity of ocher deposits in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Researchers studying the subterranean site La Mina will share their findings on the region's prehistory, the exploration the discovery and documentation of the site, and the use of the mineral pigment ocher in Pleistocene-Holocene communities.
        Since the mid 1990's over 10 sets of Paleoamerican human remains have been found in the flooded caves inland of Mexico's Caribbean coastline. Research into these remains has revealed that they are among the earliest human inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere. What had remained a mystery until 2017 was why the earliest Americans would have risked the perilous journey into a dark, disorienting, and hazardous cave environment that would have been dry during the last ice age. In 2017 the discovery of La Mina revealed one reason: early Americans were mining for ocher. Since then, extensive research and documentation has been carried out by a team of experts to determine the significance of the site.
        Cave diver and Explorers Club Fellow Jill Heinerth will discuss these compelling discoveries with several La Mina project researchers, including three Club Fellows and representatives from Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropologi'a e Historia, the University of California San Diego's Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative, the University of Missouri, McMaster University and CINDAQ (The Quintana Roo Aquifer Research Center).
  
• March 13, 2021 - Spring NSS Board of Governor's Meeting - On-line.
  The NSS Spring BOG Meeting will be held on Saturday, March 13 at 9AM Central Standard Time.
  The meeting will be held virtually and members are welcome and encouraged to attend. Please see the NSS web page for information on how to sign into the meeting.
  
• June 28 - July 2, 2021 - 2021 NSS Convention - at Weed, California.
  Nestled in a pine forest in extreme northern California, the 14-thousand foot Mount Shasta Volcano stands guard over the rugged City of Weed. Named after her founder, Abner Weed, this historic lumber town rests at the intersection of California's mountainous limestone ridges and mysterious lava tubes. Hundreds of caves in the nearby hills can provide challenges for a lifetime of explorers. We hope you can join us for the 2021 NSS Convention in Weed, CA. Details are available on the convention website at http://nss2021.caves.org/.
  
• August 13 - 15, 2021 - Karst-O-Rama - at Great Saltpetre Cave Preserve, Mt. Vernon, Kentucky.
  We're bringing Karst-O-Rama back from the dead! Great Cave Trips and Camping, vendors, and a live band with a costume party pair well with our sauna, hot tub, creek splashing, and, of course, feeding your thirst at the Guano Grill for three days of downright speleo-fun! This year's theme has yet to be decided. KOR is hosted by the Greater Cincinnati Grotto with pre-registration discounts and info available soon! For more information, see our website at: karstorama.com.
  

USA 2022

INTERNATIONAL

• July 23-29, 2021 - 18th International Congress of Speleology - at Lyon, France.
  See the website at https://uis2021.speleos.fr/ for more information.