Cave Surveying

Course Description

This course teaches the fundamentals of surveying underwater caves. It’s a course cave divers of all experience levels can enjoy.

This course teaches the fundamentals of surveying underwater caves. Its goals include:

• Encouraging more divers to survey underwater caves and promote the use of cave maps.

• Increasing the quantity and quality of cave maps.

• Promoting standardization among survey projects.

The course reviews early surveys and the development of standards and procedures. It teaches the seven phases of the survey process, from conception to survey completion. Topics covered in detail include:

• Accuracy standards
• Survey team composition
• Use and fabrication of special tools
• Survey techniques and methodology
• Safety considerations
• Data manipulation and mathematical calculations
• Symbology
• Cartography
• Copyright and publication

Course Equipment Requirements

In addition to the equipment requirements listed for all NSS-CDS courses, students are to have:

• Note pad, pen and pencils
• Graph paper
• Scaling ruler
• Circular protractor
• Basic calculator (can square and extract square roots) or scientific calculator

Course Prerequisites

• Be at least 18
• Hold full Cave Diver certification or equivalent from a widely recognized diver training organization

How long will this take?

This course generally takes two days encompassing two or more dives.