A Decade of Data Logging in Fort Stanton Cave and Snowy River

Snowy River Passage in Fort Stanton Cave was discovered in 2001, and would extend the known passages another 8 miles towards the Sierra Blanca peak, 20 miles to the southwest. The 1 cfs intermittent flow of Snowy River created a unique white calcite deposit along its sinuous route. To better understand the source of this intermittent flow, multiple data loggers were deployed by 4-member exploration teams to sites that are over 11 miles from daylight. This presentation summarizes the data logging effort and gives an example of the data being obtained, such as that in the example figure. This “Mud Lizard” site shows that starting in January 2019, the water flow created a 15-foot deep sump in a passage only 4-feet high for about 3 weeks. Two weeks later the passage again sumped for another 5 months before slowly draining back to an air-filled passage. Temperature data suggests the 2 nd flow was due to snow melt on Sierra Blanca. correlating measurement are not River part to the surface above the exploration The hydrology springs and three surface streams with intermittent flows.