WKU News & Events

April 04, 2002

Leading Chinese Karst Scientist
Visits WKU

Bowling Green, Ky. - One of China's leading cave and karst scientists has been visiting Western Kentucky University this week.

Yuan Daoxian, founder and former director of China's Institute of Karst Geology in Guilin, is spending a few days at Western's Hoffman Environmental Research Institute. Yuan's trip is the 10th such visit in an exchange program between WKU and China that began in 1994.

Yuan and his wife, Song Ailing, stopped in Bowling Green on their way to Lexington for a regional meeting of the Geological Society of America.

At that meeting, Yuan and Chris Groves, director of the Hoffman institute, will make presentations on their research on the effects of karst chemical reactions on carbon dioxide levels and their studies on water resource problems in China.

The visit by Yuan and two British cave scientists is made possible by a grant from the American Chemical Society to bring foreign scientists to the United States, Groves said.

"This is really an exciting time for those of us in the cave business here at Western," Groves said. "The world's cave scientists are aware of southcentral Kentucky and Mammoth Cave so this is one of the places they want to visit."

And Western's reputation as a leader in cave and karst studies attracts those cave scientists to campus, he said. "That benefits the University and our students," Groves said. "When leading cave experts are here, they have the opportunity to interact with students."

Several other WKU faculty members and students also made presentations this week at the joint meeting of the Geological Society of America's North-Central and Southeastern Sections in Lexington. Participants in the April 3-5 meeting included:

Groves and Joe Meiman, hydrologist at Mammoth Cave National Park, on an atmospheric carbon study in karst areas.

Dr. Nicholas Crawford, director of the Center for Cave and Karst Studies, on subsurface streams in karst areas. Others involved in the study are center staff members Leigh Ann Croft and D. Scott Roach; Jeremy Richardson, a graduate student from Clinton, Mich.; Joshua Gunnels, a Scottsville senior; Michael Firkins, an Edmonton junior; Christopher Ray, a Bowling Green junior; and Joseph Howard, a Bowling Green freshman.

Rhonda Pfaff, a London graduate student, and Weldon T. Hawkins, a Munfordville sophomore, on using geographic information systems to study water quality.

Patricia Kambesis, a Chicago graduate student, on groundwater flow in Tumbling Rock Cave in Alabama.

Johnny Merideth, a Munfordville graduate student, on the evolution of vertical shafts in karst aquifers. Groves and Meiman also participated.

Timothy Perkins, a Bowling Green senior, and Fredrick Siewers, geography and geology faculty member, on rock formations in southcentral Kentucky.

Michael May and Kenneth Keuhn, both geography and geology faculty members, on geology and the proposed transpark.

For more information, contact Chris Groves at (270) 745-5974. More WKU news is available on the World Wide Web at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via E-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.