Research establishments and university departments around the world have invested years of research time in all aspects of caves mainly their origins their hydrology and their biology Caves constitute a small but rather mysterious component of the natural environment  as such they arouse our curiosity and challenge our desire for knowledge and consequently have had a considerable amount of research effort devoted to them Furthermore because of their presence as natural phenomena they have had a long history of study which has been intensified in those parts of the world where caves have had a direct effect on our way of life However the physical agility required to visit many caves means that cave research has been less in the hands of the learned professors than in most other scientific fields Indeed there is a considerable perhaps unique overlap between the professional scientific study of caves and the amateur studies carried out by those who mainly visit caves for sport