8/18/2019 British Cave Research Association - Wikipedia

British Cave Research Association

The British Cav e Research Association (BCRA) is a speleological organisation in the United Kingdom. Its object is to promote the study of cav es and associated phenomena, and it attains this by
supporting cav e and karst research, encouraging original exploration (both in the UK and on expeditions ov erseas), collecting and publishing speleological information, maintaining a library and
British Cave Research
organising educational and scientific conferences and meetings.
Association

BCRA is a registered charity in the UK, and a constituent body of the British Cav ing Association (BCA), undertaking charitable activ ities on behalf of BCA.

Contents
History Abbreviation BCRA
Publications Predecessor British
Conference and meetings Speleological
Library
Association, Cave
Research Group of
Cave survey grading system
Great Britain
See also
Formation 1973
References
Region United Kingdom
External links served
Affiliations British Caving
Association
History
Website bcra.org.uk (http://
The British Cav e Research Association arose from a merger in 197 3 of the British Speleological Association (BSA) and the Cav e Research Group of Great Britain (CRG). [1 ] When the National Cav ing bcra.org.uk)
Association (NCA) was formed in 1968, BCRA became one of its constituent bodies. [1 ] Although NCA was recognised as the gov erning body for UK cav ing by the Sports Council it did not allow
indiv idual membership and so BCRA was seen by many as de facto the national body . This situation was resolv ed in 2005 when NCA was dissolv ed and a new body , the British Cav ing Association took ov er NCA's function as the gov erning body
for UK cav ing (as recognised by the Sports Council). [2 ] BCA consolidated v arious of the 'national body ' serv ices formerly prov ided by NCA and BCRA. At the start of 2006, a new membership structure limited BCRA membership to BCA
members, who now pay a supplement to join BCRA.

Hav ing passed on most of its functions to BCA, BCRA is now able to focus entirely on cav e science, technology and heritage matters; the latter inv olv ing the cataloguing of the v ast amount of library and archiv e material that BCRA has collected
ov er the y ears.

Publications
One of BCRA's main activ ities is publishing. It publishes the periodical Cave and Karst Science [3 ] (three issues per y ear) and the annual BCRA Review. [4 ] The BCRA Rev iew replaces Speleology, which was published from 2003 to 2014, as
BCRA's Bulletin. Prior to 2003, Speleology was published under the title Caves & Caving.

BCRA also publishes the Cave Studies series of booklets[5 ] and manages v arious Special Interest Groups that also publish material, notably the Cave Radio & Electronics Group Journal. [6 ]

In 2013 BCRA published the first v olume of a major work, Caves and Karst of the Y orkshire Dales, edited by Tony Waltham and Dav id Lowe, with Volume 2 published in 2017 . [7 ][8 ]

Conference and meetings

In 1996 the UK's annual cav ing conference (the 'BCRA Conference') was giv en a face-lift and re-titled Hidden Earth. Although BCRA still underwrites the ev ent, it is now billed as being jointly hosted by BCRA and BCA.

BCRA hosts an annual Science Sy mposium at which short papers are informally presented. Contributions are inv ited on any aspect of cav e or karst science or cav ing technology and abstracts are published in Cave & Karst Science. BCRA has
also hosted sy mposiums on Cav e Technology , featuring contributions from its Special Interest Groups.

Library
The British Cav ing Library (BCL) is a national research and reference library based in the Peak District, owned by BCRA and staffed part-time by a librarian. It mostly comprises published and archiv ed material collected by BCRA and its
predecessor organisations, with a minority of the items on long-term loan from clubs and indiv iduals. The library function with the financial assistance of the British Cav ing Association, through which the library is able to offer its serv ices to all
cav ers and to all those interested in cav e science and related topics.

The library comprises a reference section and an archiv e section of older material. The reference section includes a large collection of books and journals on cav ing topics from Britain and abroad, which is frequently updated by donations and
by journal exchanges with many cav ing clubs worldwide. Following an agreement with the National Geoscience Data Centre at the British Geological Surv ey (BGS), the archiv e material specifically relating to BCRA and its predecessor
organisations was mov ed, in 2009, to BGS for safe-keeping in controlled storage conditions.

For further information see the British Cav ing Library website, which includes an on-line catalogue of the collection, and an on-line audio archiv e.

Cave survey grading system

BCRA produced a methodology in the 1960s to assess the accuracy , or grade, of a cav e surv ey . It remains in common use today and is based on a scale of six grades. [9 ]

See also
Caving in the United Kingdom
French Federation of Speleology
International Union of Speleology
National Speleological Society (United States)

References
1. "The Formation of BCRA" (http://bcra.org.uk/detail/origins.html). bcra.org.uk . Retrieved 2019-04-27.
2. "Newsletter" (http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=publications_information:bca_newsletter_01_jul_2004.pdf) (PDF). British Caving Association. 1. July 2004.
3. "Cave & Karst Science" (http://bcra.org.uk/cks/). British Cave Research Association. Retrieved 2016-10-26.
4. "BCRA Review" (http://bcra.org.uk/news/). British Cave Research Association. Retrieved 2016-10-26.
5. "Cave Studies Series" (http://bcra.org.uk/cs/). British Cave Research Association. Retrieved 2016-10-26.
6. "Cave Radio & Electronics Group Journal" (http://bcra.org.uk/cregj/). British Cave Research Association. Retrieved 2016-10-26.
7. "Caves and Karst of the Yorkshire Dales Vol 1" (http://bcra.org.uk/pub/dales/index.html?j=1). British Cave Research Association. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
8. "Caves and Karst of the Yorkshire Dales Vol 2" (http://bcra.org.uk/pub/dales/index.html?j=2). British Cave Research Association. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
9. "BCRA Surveying Grades" (http://www.bcra.org.uk/surveying/). British Cave Research Association. Retrieved 2009-05-02.

External links
British Cave Research Association (http://bcra.org.uk/)
British Caving Library (http://caving-library.org.uk/)

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