Caves - Lore and Science

May 17 (Tuesday), 6 p.m., Teton Co. Library Auditorium – Open to the Public. Presentation: “ Caves, Caving and the Death of Floyd Collins”.  Presented by Paul Heller, University of Wyoming. 

Chair of the University of Wyoming’s Geology & Geophysics Department, Dr. Paul Heller, studies regional geologic systems, such as those that have formed Wyoming’s deep basins, primary sources of the mineral wealth that supports our state’s economy. But his interests are broad, and caves and cave systems are one of his more “just for fun” interests. So Paul will inform and certainly entertain the audience with a bit of cave lore and science.

Regarding this topic, Paul writes …

“With much national media attention, Floyd Collins died in a cave in west-central Kentucky in 1925. Unsettlingly, I met him in a different cave fifty years later. By then he didn’t look too good. In order to explain the circumstances of his death and post-mortem wanderings we first consider the geology of cave formation in general, and specifically the development and exploration of these systems in Kentucky. With that understanding we then consider Floyd’s life and death as a caver, his afterlife somnambulism, and the circumstances of our meeting.  A dreadful time will be had by all.”