NSS Convention 2026

Version 3.16 July 10, 2026

Survey and Cartography updates.

Hopefully, this is the last update! Thanks to everyone that used the online schedule!

We have a new session: “3D LiDAR cave survey software for iPhone”.

Sadly, we had to cancel a session: “Testing and reviewing the new 3DMakerpro Raven handheld LiDAR Scanner”

Version 3.15 July 10, 2026

NSF Trustee meeting updates!

Sadly, we had to cancel a session: “NSF Trustees Meeting (open)”

We have moved a session around: “NSF Trustees Meeting (open)” (103 → 112)

Version 3.14 July 10, 2026

Friday morning updates. Survey section has one more change I need to clarify at 2:05

We have moved a session around: “The Caving Podcast Live featuring: Jason Ballensky & Dustin Kisner” (254 → Band Room)

Version 3.13 July 9, 2026

Change order of talks to make sense. Likely I should have checked this earlier.

We had to move some sessions, so if you were planning on seeing them, check their new dates or locations:

• “How Do I Know Where This Drone Image Is?” by Philip Balister (July 10, 2026, 1:15 p.m. → July 10, 2026, 1:40 p.m.)
• “Photogrammetry for Fun and Prospecting” by Philip Balister (July 10, 2026, 1:40 p.m. → July 10, 2026, 1:15 p.m.)

Version 3.12 July 9, 2026

Very last minute change!

We have moved a session around: “Convention Debrief” (228 → Cafeteria)

Version 3.11 July 8, 2026

Schedule the RAVE!

We have a new session: “EDM Rave”.

Version 3.10 July 8, 2026

Wednesday Morning updates from staff

We had to move some sessions, so if you were planning on seeing them, check their new dates or locations:

• “NSF Trustees Meeting (open)” (103 → 226)
• “Diffraction Limited Optics and the New Galaxy S25 Ultra 200Mp Lens” (154 → 226)
• “Why and when to choose a cellphone over a con- ventional digital camera for cave photography, and tips for getting the best possible photo from them” (154 → 226)
• “Can AI Image Editing Tools Understand a Cave?” (154 → 226)
• “Planned Giving” (103 → 226)
• “Convention Debrief” (103 → 228)

Version 3.9 July 7, 2026

Apparently the vertical section will wait 20 minutes to eat lunch.

We have moved a session around: “Vertical Section Lunch/Business Meeting” (July 9, 2026, 12:40 p.m. → July 9, 2026, 1 p.m.)

Version 3.8 July 7, 2026

Special update for the vertical section!

Sadly, we had to cancel a session: “Vertical Caving: Some of My Heretical Opinions”

We had to move some sessions, so if you were planning on seeing them, check their new dates or locations:

• “Vertical Section Lunch/Business Meeting” (July 9, 2026, 1 p.m. → July 9, 2026, 12:40 p.m.)
• “Fun and Sketchy Things to Do with Rappel Devices” (July 9, 2026, 12:40 p.m. → July 9, 2026, 10:10 a.m.)

Version 3.7 July 7, 2026

Tuesday "morning" updates. Your scheduling team enjoyed the Howdy Party!

We had to move some sessions, so if you were planning on seeing them, check their new dates or locations:

• “Coffee & Karst” (Registration Hallway → Cafeteria)
• “Cave Diving Exploration” (257 → Choir Room)
• “Coffee & Karst” (Registration Hallway → Cafeteria)

Version 3.6 July 6, 2026

Last minute updates from communications and electronics session per organizers

We have a new session: “Ruggedized oxygen and carbon dioxide air logger for continuous sampling - Virtual” by Philip Balister.

Sadly, we had to cancel a session: “Tuned Loop Antenna Matching Made Easy”

Version 3.5 July 6, 2026

Move NSS Auction to the Cafeteria

We have moved a session around: “NSS Auction” (223 → Cafeteria)

Version 3.4 July 6, 2026

Move Communications and Electronics to room 154

We had to move some sessions, so if you were planning on seeing them, check their new dates or locations:

• “Analysis of a Network Outage in BuecherNet in Fort Stanton Cave, NM” (103 → 154)
• “Bat talk cancelled, Now: Special Events Stations” (103 → 154)
• “Tuned Loop Antenna Matching Made Easy” (103 → 154)
• “Luncheon & Business Meeting” (103 → 154)
• “Audio in Cave Projects” (103 → 154)
• “Flamingo Cave Radios” by Jamie Moon (103 → 154)

Version 3.3 July 6, 2026

We released a new schedule version!

We have a new session: “Binkley Cave System: The Importance of Digs in Expanding Indiana’s Longest Cave”.

We had to move some sessions, so if you were planning on seeing them, check their new dates or locations:

• “Yoga” (202 → Wrestling Area (next to cartography))
• “Cave Diving Exploration” (254 → 257)
• “Yoga” (202 → Wrestling Area (next to cartography))

Version 3.2 July 1, 2026

We released a new schedule version!

Version 3.1 July 1, 2026

We released a new schedule version!

We had to move some sessions, so if you were planning on seeing them, check their new dates or locations:

• “Vertical Section Lunch/Business Meeting” (July 9, 2026, noon → July 9, 2026, 1 p.m.)
• “Luncheon & Business Meeting” (July 6, 2026, 12:30 p.m., 154 → July 6, 2026, 1 p.m., 103)

Version 3.0 June 20, 2026

Re-add Beer Swap (VPI Campground, Wed Jul 8 20:00)

We have a new session: “Beer Swap and Horizontal Section Meeting”.

Version 2.9 June 19, 2026

Add Beer Swap event Wednesday 8pm at VPI Campground

Version 2.8 June 17, 2026

Restore correct presenter names from PDF program guide

Version 1.9 June 17, 2026

Restore correct presenter names from PDF program guide

Version 2.7 June 16, 2026

Normalize abstract line wraps

Version 2.6 June 15, 2026

Track colors now visible — all submissions assigned to tracks

Version 2.5 June 15, 2026

Track colors assigned

Version 2.4 June 15, 2026

Added abstracts from program guide PDF pages 60-112

Version 2.3 June 15, 2026

Speaker names in description; full title in abstract where truncated

Version 2.2 June 15, 2026

Removed duplicate parent session blocks; individual talks only

Version 2.1 June 15, 2026

Added 131 individual speaker talks from program guide

We have new sessions!

• “Extinct Long-nosed Peccary Remains from Shenandoah Wild Cave, Virginia: An Update”
• “Twenty Kentucky Caves That Might be Bigger than Mammoth”
• “Early Woodland Gypsum Mining at Bluff Cave, Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky”
• “Quantifying and Comparing Sinkhole Morphometry across Different Geospatial Datasets”
• “Fun and Sketchy Things to Do with Rappel Devices”
• “Diffraction Limited Optics and the New Galaxy S25 Ultra 200Mp Lens”
• “Bigger, Better Mobile Caves for STEM Education Outreach”
• “A Brief Overview of the Significant Hoosier Cavers 1850-2025”
• “Vertical Caving: Some of My Heretical Opinions”
• “0Bar Maps: Interactive Maps for Your Cave Phone”
• “The Gauntlet”
• “Fundamentals of Rigging”
• “Recent Discoveries in Shoveleater Cave”
• “The Powell Mountain Karst Preserve: A Management Plan Analysis”
• “Analysis of a Network Outage in BuecherNet in Fort Stanton Cave, NM”
• “Cueva Sin Fin”
• “Sandstone Caves in Northeast Ohio”
• “The Importance of Small Mammals in Cave Paleontology”
• “Klamath Mountains Project, Cave Research Foundation”
• “History of Cave Exploration in Wayne County, Kentucky”
• “Software Defined Cave Symbology”
• “Kentucky Speleological Survey — State Overview”
• “Mapping cave vulnerability and priority areas for biospeleological conservation”
• “Nimbus project on Vancouver Island, BC”
• “hong Nha-Kẻ Bàng: Cave Ecotourism for Sustainable Development in Việt Nam”
• “Great Caves, Great Survey Projects in Rockcastle County, Kentucky”
• “Cedar Grove Cave—Discovery of a Virgin Cave”
• “Indiana Cave Survey—State Overview”
• “Documenting and Describing Two Species of Cave -Adapted Blind Fish in the Tiger Cave System, Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park, Việt Nam”
• “The consequences of the self-modification island karst aquifers”
• “Tuned Loop Antenna Matching Made Easy”
• “Expressing Culture Piece by Piece”
• “PESH 2026 Expedition”
• “Select Methods Using Adobe Illustrator”
• “An Investigation of Permanently Rigged Ropes”
• “History of Kernmantle Rope”
• “Caves of Edwards Mountain & Wayne County”
• “Report-walking: Using Search and Rescue Reports to Find Unmapped Caves”
• “Mapping the extensive caves of the newly accessible Lạng Sơn Geopark, Vietnam”
• “Evaluating speleothem samples as a geological archive for paleomagnetic records and environmental interpretation”
• “How Do I Know Where This Drone Image Is?” by Philip Balister
• “Regional Geology and GIS Overview”
• “Historic Cave Slides of Lewis David Lamon, NSS2188FE, taken 1952-1990”
• “Subterranean isopod diversity in caves of the northern Interior Low Plateaus”
• “Directed Phytokarst: Red-Shifted Phototrophy and Limestone Dissolution in Cave Twilight Zones”
• “Cavers: Who, Why, So What?”
• “Charles Waldack and Mammoth Cave”
• “Applied Geophysics and LiDAR in Karst: From Environmental Consulting to Cave Discovery”
• “Cataloging the National Cave Museum”
• “Can AI Image Editing Tools Understand a Cave?”
• “New Zealand Expedition, 2026”
• “The Salts Cave/Unknown Cave Footprint Project, Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky”
• “Techniques for Generating High-Definition Karst-Focused Terrain Imagery from LiDAR Surface Data”
• “Conservation and Management of the Paul Wightman Subterranean Nature Preserve”
• “Fisher Ridge Cave System Project 2023-2026 Update”
• “Bat talk cancelled, Now: Special Events Stations”
• “Pennsylvania's Show Caves”
• “2025 Silvertip Expedition: Bobsled Cave Exploration”
• “Josiah Mosher Jr. and the Mammoth Cave Hotel”
• “An Ancient Bear Skeleton from Cebada, Chiquibul Cave System, Belize”
• “Ohio Cave Survey—State Overview”
• “A creature from the “Upside Down”: cryptic cave- fish diversity in a long-studied karst cave ecosystem”
• “Cooper’s Cave, New York: A Notable Bicentennial, 1826 - 2026”
• “Binkley Cave Project”
• “New surveys of cave and groundwater fauna in the Upper Floridan Aquifer”
• “Warm River Cave Update”
• “Geology, Mineralogy, Archeology and Exploration History of Hualalai Ranch Cave, Hawaii”
• “Progress in Fort Stanton Cave”
• “Cave Mapping and Inventory of a Significant KY National Forest”
• “The 130-Year History of the Ohio Cave Survey”
• “Audio in Cave Projects”
• “Are There Renewable Resources in Caves? Do Drip Hole Rings Count? And What Can Cavers Ethically Do in Exploring and Studying Caves?”
• “Developing New Surveyors, Sketchers and Cartographers through Beginner Focused Projects”
• “Exploration in Montenegro”
• “40 Years of Exploration at Cueva Cheve, Oaxaca, Mexico”
• “Cave Mapping and Inventory of a Significant Kentucky National Forest”
• “Evaluating the Biogenicity of Biovermiculations in Mammoth Cave, KY, USA”
• “Roppel Cave”
• “Lee County Blowing – A Speleo Whodunit”
• “Celebrate the UNESCO International Day of Caves and Karst, September 13th”
• “Walking into Mordor: The Mount Baker Glaciovolcanic Cave Expedition”
• “Bolting Considerations for High Traffic Caves and/or Bad Rock Quality: a Brief Introduction to Glue-In’s”
• “Continued Exploration in Mindanao, Philippines”
• “Population Monitoring of the Enigmatic Cave Snail, Fontigens antroecetes, in Stemler Cave”
• “Speleological Model in ArcGIS”
• “Whigpistle Cave Project Update 2026”
• “New Paradigms of Speleogenesis in the Ohio River Valley”
• “NSS Vertical Training Commission: July 2026 Progress Update”
• “Fern Cave Survey Project”
• “Testing and reviewing the new 3DMakerpro Raven handheld LiDAR Scanner”
• “Modern Exploration in Big Bat Cave”
• “Cavers, State Agencies , and the United States Forest Service Working Together to Protect Caves and Karst in Virginia”
• “Gem Cave: A New Discovery Under South Dakota's Black Hills”
• “CAC Creating a Legacy at UA”
• “Utilizing Structural Lineament Mapping with Digital Elevation Models for Understanding Speleogeneic Patterns in the Mammoth Cave Plateau”
• “Modern Exploration of Warren Cave in Florida”
• “"Camp Rock," aka "The Black Mountain Hotel": Mount Mitchell's Historic Rock Shelter”
• “New Interpretation of Sediments and Fossils from a Cave in Sullivan County, Tennessee”
• “Celebrate the Conservation Legacy of Rob Stitt NSS 5403 Stories, Song, Snacks ! Three Generations of Caving, Conservation, and Speleopolitics Rob Stitt”
• “James Cave, The Cave, The Exploration”
• “Understanding the variability in gas concentrations of Carlsbad Cavern”
• “When Martel was Banished from Mammoth Cave, or On Discovering a Rare Version of Hovey’s 1912 Guidebook”
• “The Importance of Caves in the History of Geology”
• “Exploring the stratigraphic and structural context of the Cheve karst system, Oaxaca, Mexico”
• “Discussion of “Empowering Women Through Cave Exploration and Conservation””
• “Photogrammetry for Fun and Prospecting” by Philip Balister
• “Big Bat Cave—A Brief History of Exploration”
• “Sternes Cave Project, Crete, Greece”
• “Examining phylogenetic relationships and cryptic diversity in the genus Scoterpes (Chordeumatida: Trichopetalidae), a wide-ranging genus of North American cave-obligate millipedes”
• “Recent Discoveries in Hidden River Cave, Kentucky”
• “Flamingo Cave Radios” by Jamie Moon
• “Whigpistle Cave Project Update: 2026”
• “From Incident to Insight: A College Grotto's Perspective on a Vertical Rescue in Wind-Hicks Cave”
• “The influence of magnitude and frequency on the relative importance of chemical and mechanical erosion: Examples from J2 and slot canyons in the Ozarks”
• “Examining genetic diversity and potential cryptic diversity within the Georgia Blind Salamander and the Dougherty Plain Cave Crayfish of the Upper Floridan Aquifer”
• “026 U.S. Cave Animal of the Year – The Slimy Salamander Cave Animal of the Year Team”
• “Pless Cave Exploration & Mapping”
• “Exploring Courtey Cave and the Cave Systems of Central Ohio's Scioto River Corridor”
• “The Discovery and Recovery of the Shenandoah Caverns Peccaries and Reincarnation of PRIOVAC”
• “The Effects of Excavation on Cave Ecosystems (Two Years Later)”
• “Geologic Characterization of the Glaciovolcanic Caves of Mount Baker, Washington”
• “Mulu Cave Project 2026”
• “Roaming North-Eastern Mexico Surveying Unexplored Caves”
• “Beneath the Thunder Dragon: Cave Exploration in Eastern Bhutan”
• “Advances in Discovering and Managing Paleontological Resources in Tennessee Caves”
• “Why and when to choose a cellphone over a con- ventional digital camera for cave photography, and tips for getting the best possible photo from them”
• “Mineralogical and Genetic Controls on Coralloid Crystal Formation in Granite Talus Caves of Franconia Notch, New Hampshire”
• “Automated Cave Detection from LiDAR: Improved Methods and Broader Access”
• “Protecting Caves and Karst – A Holistic Approach”
• “The Restoration of Pleasant Valley Cave”
• “Sediment geochemistry, manganese oxidation, hu- man traffic, and microbial community structure across three Southern Appalachian caves”

Version 2.0 June 15, 2026

Final schedule from June 2026 program guide

We have new sessions!

• “Geology and Geography Section Meeting”
• “NSS Awards Banquet”
• “NSS Auction”
• “An Oral History of Indiana Caving”
• “Cavers Against Sexual Harassment”
• “BOG Lunch (Closed)”
• “Full Photo Salon and Salon Awards”
• “Yoga”
• “Cave Diving Exploration”
• “NSF Trustees Meeting (open)”
• “Cave Ballad Salon Critique”
• “Fine Arts Salon Opening”
• “Cave Open House (shuttles provided to/from)”
• “Cave Photography Workshop”
• “Sketching Contest Results”
• “Vertical Climbing Contests”
• “Interagency Meeting”
• “Survey & Cartography Section Meeting & Lunch”
• “Discover Vertical Caving”
• “Cave Ballards & Print Salon Critique”
• “Vertical Training Commission (VTC)”
• “Fellows & New Members Reception”
• “Speleothem Repair Workshop Part II”
• “NSF Trustees Meeting (open)”
• “Photo Salon and Salon Awards Short Show”
• “Photo Salon Critique”
• “State Cave Surveys”
• “NPS Cave Managers Meeting”
• “Luminary Speaker: Gordon Smith”
• “Contingency Considerations in Caving”
• “Open Mic”
• “In-Cave Sketching: Paper & Digital”
• “Sketching Contest”
• “Cave Digging Section”
• “Collegiate Grotto Challenges and Solutions”
• “Convention Debrief”
• “Cartographic Salon Critique”
• “Coffee & Karst”
• “Book Signing: Mud, Water & Guts - Gary T. Roberson”
• “Campground Party/Music: Muchos Garcias”
• “Vertical Climbing Contests”
• “Speleology for Cavers”
• “BOG Open Meeting”
• “Vertical Section Lunch/Business Meeting”
• “Carlsbad Caverns Listening Session”
• “BOG Meeting”
• “The Caving Podcast Live featuring: Jason Ballensky & Dustin Kisner”
• “Luminary Speaker: Jill Yager”
• “Luminary Speaker: Catherine "Cat" & Charlie Bishop”
• “Vertical Climbing Contests”
• “Opening Ceremony”
• “Coffee & Karst”
• “NCKMS Steering Committee”
• “Pottery Demonstration by Peter Jones”
• “Speleology for Cavers”
• “Yoga”
• “Caver Story Telling Contest”
• “Fine Art Salon Critique”
• “Arts & Letters Salon and Cave Writers Workshop”
• “BOG Meeting (Closed)”
• “NSS Awards Committee”
• “Cave Conservancy Roundtable”
• “Luncheon & Business Meeting”
• “Congress of Grottos”
• “Arts and Letters Lunch”
• “NCRC Annual Meeting”
• “Karaoke”
• “Discover Vertical Caving”
• “Video Salon Viewing”
• “Introduction to Sketching: Digital and Paper”
• “Convention Planning”
• “Speleophilatelic Section”
• “Planned Giving”
• “Book Signing: Mud, Water & Guts- Gary T. Roberson”
• “Speleology Class Lunch”
• “BOG Meeting”
• “NSS Preserves & Acquisitions”
• “Farewell Party/Music: Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band”
• “Howdy Party Dinner/Music : The Creekers”
• “Keynote Speaker: Genevieve von Petzinger”
• “Speleothem Repair Workshop Part I”
• “Arts & Letters”
• “Sketching Contest”

Version 1.1 March 21, 2026

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Version 1.0 March 21, 2026

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Version v2 March 21, 2026

We released a new schedule version!

Version v1 March 15, 2026

WIP Schedule