Narnian Rockhound

Which conference? A few thoughts... a good EarthCache broadens and/or deepens the cacher's understanding of Earth processes. Great ones challenge false presuppositions and expose the cacher to new ideas. They also let the Earth do the talking - the new ideas are presented in front of your face, where you see it and can't deny it. Good ECs make people respond with "Look at that!", "Wow!", or "MIND. BLOWN." - or some similar expression of surprise, interest, or astonishment. Most folks (at least in the U.S.) don't know much about geology because of the very limited Earth science education in K-12 classrooms in the U.S. Hence, people often have misconceptions about the Earth - a good EarthCache exposes the cacher to the limits of their knowledge or incorrect ideas they may have held and allows the cacher to broaden their own understanding. In general, people learn from experiences, especially hands-on activities where they are learning through doing. Great EarthCaches, as others have already stated, require a hands-on activity - the cacher must make some observation or measurement, etc., that gives some kind of meaningful information. all for now... good luck with your presentation.

Great stuff, well done & congrats to the winner(s). Am updating my EC pages now - how are y'all incorporating this thing?

Fantastic. great new feature, now I've got to get my EC TB sent on its way.

wow, I'm late to discovering this - awesome! For those who've reported problems - are these getting worked out?

I'd be willing to take a look at it. Send me an email.

I also think it perfectly reasonable to keep all of the logging requirements together and put them at the top of the cache so that they are easily available to all, including paperless GSPrs. It certainly is the finder's responsibility to read the entire cache description and know what is expected, but it makes sense to put the "abstract" front & center, for easy reference after reading through the entire "manuscript" (that is how science papers are written, after all). Tasks that are stuffed at the end or worse in between the text are more difficult to find later. After I read the whole thing, as the seeker I want the "Executive Summary" to be easy to refer back to. And with that, I think it also pertinent to include a list of the tools needed to perform the tasks, and relevant safety information, right at the top also. The goal is to make EarthCaching less frustrating to those who want to give it a try. In my opinion, some EC owners are overly zealous when it comes to "protecting" the integrity of the finds. Most folks are good people and are doing their best at these things; I encourage people to not make this into a frustrating experience for the majority of users. It is possible to uphold good standards and make the experience enjoyable & easily accessible at the same time. My $0.02.

ok, um... what's a "skirtlifter"?

yes, interested!

I think your approach you describe in your first paragraph is right on. As to the situation in your 2nd paragraph, requiring a GPS elevation within 25' is ridiculous. That demonstrates that the owner really has no idea about the errors in GPS measurements. That should be changed; I'm really surprised that would get approved, and it makes me wonder if the owner inserted that as a change after it was approved & published. I would also delete someone who said they couldn't do it because a park didn't allow dogs on trails. If you want to log the cache, it's your responsibility to get to the place! So well done!!

The new guidelines do not say that owners cannot require a picture. I submitted an EC after the change in guidelines, with a picture requirement, and had no problem getting that part approved. What you can't do is to require some specific personal object in the picture - face, for example. I would say that your GPS falls into that category as well. In mine, which again was approved after the change in policy, I ask people to take a picture of the feature along with some kind of object to represent the scale of the image. This is common practice among geologists, who usually use a rock hammer or pocket knife or ruler or compass or GPS or whatever they've got in their pack. So to me, this is part of the education of the visit to the site - you learn how to document your field visit like a geologist would, by taking a photograph of the object of interest that includes a scale. Many objects in geology are fractal in nature - that is, the objects can look very similar whether they are really small or really huge. So to know, simply place an object of known dimensions in the picture. But if I were to require something else specific in the pic, I think it would violate the policy. This situation that started this thread, where a cacher is stuck not being able to log the find because the camera and GPS are the same object, should not keep someone from logging the cache. That just leads to extra frustration for people who want to do it, and those kinds of extra frustrations turn people off. It's an unnecessary burden placed upon the finder, and it doesn't contribute anything to the learning experience to require a face, or a GPS, or a whatever, and I also don't think it offers any additional "proof" of being there that other photographic evidence can't also provide, which many EC owners really want to have (and I support that too).

KK&M - I think we're actually in pretty good agreement here. You quoted the standards - the caches are to take people to specific sites and be educational. And that's good enough for me. If someone tries to log a find and yet hasn't really tried to understand the EC, or even really visited the site, then they haven't fulfilled the standards. I'm not talking about flunking someone who's actually tried to log the cache - that would be ridiculous! I've had some who got pretty awful answers to what is a pretty simple field measurement - but it seems like they at least visited the site, and probably tried to measure the item, so I let it pass. I only own one EC, and it has only had 6-10 log it. But even with those small numbers, one person, however, admitted they "had to do a drive by", and didn't bother answering any of the questions! I can't in good conscience allow someone who just drove by the site log it as a find - they can't have possibly learned much, and that's not in keeping with the goals of taking people to a great site and having it be an educational experience. I think geocaching.com & GSA would agree with me on that one. It would be nice to find out for sure, but I think I'm being pretty reasonable here. I would agree that there are some EC owners who are too hard core and delete things they shouldn't, because they want too much "proof". And that does turn some people off - which I really want to avoid! I think changing the photo requirement will help with that, if owners understand what the changes mean, and what they don't mean, and follow through with the changes in requirements. We need to take the "found it" logs in good faith - if someone insists they visited the site and tried to accomplish the goals, then there's no harm in allowing them to log, even if they've missed something. But at the same time, cachers should not attempt to log a find when they haven't even really tried to accomplish the goals - they have to log in good faith also, or I think we lose some integrity of the game. my two cents (with no accompanying flames!) :-)

oh, and as to timing, I expect people to send in the logging requirements before, or at least at the same time, as logging the find. I always send the requirement email in before logging the find. Someone who logs the find but then waits more than a day or two to send in the requirements is asking to be deleted. I would not give them more than a week.

I understand not wanting to be a jerk about it. But at the same time, geocaching.com and the Geological Society of America have standards that they expect us to uphold. Be overly nice in explaining why their log doesn't fit, and if you want even apologize for having to delete their log. I had to delete one tonight. About a week ago, someone logged my EC saying they "had to do a drive-by" because there was too much traffic and no place to pull off. They didn't answer any of the questions, nor did they include the required photo with their log. I gave them a week, to see if they would try and fix any of this. They didn't, so I sent them a nice email, explained what an EC was (they had only logged 2, so perhaps didn't understand?), and that I had to uphold the standards of geocaching & GSA. I also asked them to try and log it correctly in the future, and offered to help if they had questions. I agree with what some others have said about not wanting to be all tough about it - some people will try their best, but still get the answers wrong. And if I think they've tried, then I'll usually respond and see if I can lead them to the correct answers. But we've got to uphold some basic standards.

Archeology, although popular from Indiana Jones etc., is really not a very large field compared to geology or history. I also think it would be extremely tough for the average cacher to come up with good archeology based locations. History sites, however, sound really cool and possible. Hope that someday comes to be! So long as they were well managed (and I'm sure some professional organization would need to be involved, like GSA for ECs) I would think there would be some really great possibilities out there.

An esker seems like a great EC to me; and I bet there are a bunch already out there. You could check out what others have done with them to perhaps get some ideas. All eskers generally have a few things in common - 1) morphology: they are generally small hills that are elongated and sinuous in shape; 2) material: they are made up of unconsolidated gravel, sand, & mud, not bedrock; and 3) origin: they are glacial deposits. As to the activity you have your finders do, perhaps you could have them do something or ask them a question related to #1 and/or #2, and I would definitely recommend to try and get them to think about #3.

All EarthCachers- I'm wondering if those of you who are avid EarthCachers would be willing to be open about how much background training you've had in geology prior to ECs. I'm a geology professor at SMLAU (Small Midwestern Liberal Arts University), and I love the whole idea of ECs. GSA & geocaching.com have a great thing going here. I'm interested in them not only as a hobby (I've logged 47 of them in 10 states, minuscule compared to some of you guys!), I'm interested in them professionally from the standpoint of Earth science public education & outreach. And I love it that anyone with a GPS can find a sweet spot on Earth and share it with the world. I've got about 15 different ideas for locations but have just been slow at getting around to working them up & getting them published. But back to the topic. What I'm wondering is, especially those of you who've set up caches for others to find, what your level of background training in geology is. none? a course in high school? just like to read about geology? college level courses? read National Geographic as a kid? Note that I'm certainly not trying to embarrass anyone about what they know or don't know. Like I said above, the great thing about them is that anyone can set one up, regardless. But I'm wondering this: does a prior interest in geology lead people to do EarthCaching, or does doing EarthCaching lead people to have an interest in geology? Or a little bit of both? Appreciate your comments. Best, N_R

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but one of the more complete "online geology dictionaries" that I've ever stumbled across is this one: http://www.maden.hacettepe.edu.tr/dmmrt/index.html I would say, however, that ECs are supposed to be written for an audience something like a 14-year-old, so using a lot of these terms would be too technical.

I too have logged an EarthCache, where I went there before it was created, but, like another user above, it was just a short while before it was created and I was planning on creating one there myself. Someone else just beat me to it. In general I don't see anything wrong with people logging things that they've been to prior to them being ECs, but they've got to be able to answer all the questions and do whatever is necessary for the logging requirements. If someone can't answer ANY of the questions correctly, then they didn't really accomplish the whole point of the EC, that is to learn something about the site. I would also encourage people to not put a time limit on logs. I've got a couple that I was at a year ago and just haven't gotten around to logging them. I've also got some cacher friends of mine who were at a cache with me, but who haven't logged it yet. Maybe they'll get around to it, maybe not, but why make it more difficult and cause people frustration? Who does it really benefit? Forcing a logging time limit It would only encourage people to lie about the date when they visited. I know we all want to keep the armchair ECers from logging our stuff. But I think it's worse to make ECs too rigid that good people get too frustrated with it and just give up. I know several geocachers who've given up on ECs because some of them are just too complicated to log. I think the new requirements will help that by removing the unnecessarily stringent requirements that some EC owners have used.

I thought they were getting classified before getting listed in the Earthcache.org datebase by someone. I didn't relzie with the new system that they were no longer getting classified. The new system says "The listing on this site will be updated each month. At that time your EarthCache will be assigned a classification (river feature , fossil site, mineral site etc)." So I think they will get classified, but perhaps not at the time they are entered into the database, but on some other schedule?

As a geologist, I have always assumed that a "structural" EC was some kind of feature that geologists call a geologic structure. An artesian well wouldn't qualify. Seems odd to me that one of those would be included there. Geologic structures include folds, faults, ripple marks, cross-bedding, rain-drop imprints, and many other things.

Just to add my vote, I think it would be excellent to be able to log the visit of a TB at an EC. The arguments against it presented here so far aren't terribly convincing. The idea sounds like fun. I have an EC geocoin that I'd like to make this it's mission - something like, "the goal of this geocoin is to visit 1 EC in every state" or something. Obviously the physical transfer of the TB between users would only occur in traditional caches or swapped between users, etc., but then when in the possession of a user, the TB could visit an EC. Great idea!

I agree this is an worthy topic - users who understand the limits of GPS are better contributors to the game as a whole. And though I can appreciate the debate of accuracy/consistency/precision, let's not lose sight of the larger issue and get bogged down in technicalities. Most folks will understand this issue as "accuracy", even though that's technically incorrect. There seems, in my experience, to be a need to understand this especially from the point of view of those who hide a cache. Some folks seem to take a quick snapshot for coords, displaying an attitude that getting the best coords. possible isn't very important. I would prefer to see clearer guidelines on the site for how people should go about measuring the positions for their hides. Several people have mentioned some critical steps to take, but unless I've missed it, there are a few important points that haven't really been well flushed out. 1) The number of satellites you are hearing is obviously critical, but also important is whether you are getting a WAAS signal in addition to the regular birds. WAAS improves your position calculations tremendously, but it can take some time for the signal to be received and used to correct the position, sometimes up to 15 minutes after turning the unit on. And since the WAAS satellites are in fixed positions in the southern sky for us N. Am. folks, knowing this can help a user make better/more informed choices when marking positions. 2) A few folks have mentioned within-unit averaging, which is also really important - to let the unit sit there at the location for ~5 minutes is a tremendous benefit when marking a point, as most units will continuously average over time their location calculation if the unit is not moving. Compare, for example, the difference between firing up a unit, getting 4-6 birds/no WAAS in 2 minutes and grabbing a point quickly, to letting the unit warm up, get all 12 channels cranking w/ WAAS corrections, and let the unit sit and average for 5 minutes after that. There is a tremendous difference in the "correctness" of these two ways of doing it. 3) Taking several measurements over the course of a single day or several days is also really useful as the satellites move across the sky. The question becomes, though, how does the ordinary user go about "averaging" several lat./long. sets of coords? Most folks probably wouldn't know how to approach this very well - but, if you follow good procedure and get ~4 really good measurements, they probably won't be too terribly different and a visible pattern would emerge. Plotting the results in googlemaps or similar might help people see how their measurements are displaced from one another. Other corrections, like differential GPS or post-processing, can also improve positions tremendously down to the sub-meter range, but these are not going to be accessible to common GPS users.

Ok; tried this again later and had success; it worked automatically without any trouble. Several potential causes: 1) I really did need to go to a more open place and just get more satellites. This is possible, but I don't think likely, because the TerraSync software was not have any problem getting an eye on the birds in the sky. 2) I also had recently run the mobile google maps application. That one is one that, even though I "closed" it, it did not actually exit the program (unknown to me at the time but learned later). It is possible, I think, that the Wherigo player was not able to access the GPS signal from the COM port because the googlemaps app was interfering. Not sure. 3) ??

I have a Trimble Juno SB running Windows Mobile 6.1. I just installed the Wherigo Player. Loaded it up and it started fine. However it doesn't ever seem to be able to get a location from the GPS antenna. I shows what looks like some kind of GPS signal icon with bars, but it's always red. It might flash green every once in a while. When I tried to run the tutorial, it said that I did not have good enough GPS connection. However, I then went back to the Trimble GPS software (TerraSync), and it said that it could not access the COM port to the GPS antenna because it was in use by another program. Went into the System/Task Manager and it showed 5-6 programs "still running" even though I had closed them all down (because apparently a Windows Mobile device doesn't actually exit programs when you close them????). I told Task Manager to exit the Wherigo player. Then went back to TerraSync, and it was then able to access the GPS antenna. This suggests that the Wherigo Player was using the correct COM port to access the GPS antenna, but for whatever reason it wasn't able to get a position. Anyone have any advice?