How did Montana's caves form? Hans has a site for that

Why are Montana's caves where they are, and how did they form? Hans has been working that out for more than twenty years, and he's put it all in one place: Montana Cave Geology. It's on the nrmg.org menu now, under Caves.

Hans Bodenhamer has written up the geology of nine cave areas, from Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall to the Little Belts, the Big Snowies and the Beartooths. The oldest piece is from 2004 and three are brand new this year. One ran in the NSS's Journal of Cave and Karst Studies. Every one is free to read.

Twenty years of the Bigfork High School Cave Club

The other half of the site belongs to Hans's students. Over 20 years the Bigfork High School Cave Club worked in more than 70 Montana caves: finding where bats hibernate, inventorying minerals, recording historic graffiti, and photographing the same spots again and again to see what had changed. Their resource assessments and monitoring reports are all there, along with several of Hans's talks from our annual meetings.

The monitoring can be done again

The club has retired, but the work was built to be repeated. Go back to the same cave with the same report, and you can tell whether it's changing and where it needs looking after. If you'd like to help pick that up, tell us.

Thank you, Hans, for sharing all of it.