Help and explanations

The Matienzo Cave Search page should answer the questions that Matienzo cavers are always asking, eg where's a good draughting dig in Cobabdal? and what caves are still going in Riaño? The generated lists can be printed off and copied into other applications, eg GPS devices, spreadsheets, etc.
The user will narrow down a search ending up with the required list of sites. So, to answer the first question above would require 3 stages: first choose Cobadal from the area list, second choose dig from the interest list then type in draught draughting into the text search box.
Any choices boxes, eg science or order, that are not required can be ignored and will not be used in the search.
All lists returned are actively linked to the full site description via the "code".

Area Search
The scrolling choice box is populated with all of the areas in the Matienzo database. The number of named areas is probably too many but that's how it is at the moment! A link to an area map is provided to help visualise areas. Clicking on an area will limit all subsequent choices to that area until after the Search button is clicked. The default is for all the areas to be chosen, so clicking the Search button with all the choices in default positions will list all the Matienzo caves in alphabetical order.
More than one area can be chosen: use CTRL-click to select more than one isolated area, eg Cubija and El Naso. This facility is necessary when looking for caves over a wide area. For example when searching for sites on the hills to the east of the Matienzo depression, Muela, Mullir and La Colina should be chosen. Clicking the search button will then show 3 scrollable windows listing all the sites in the 3 areas.

Interest
The area search can be further limited by choosing one from a set of "interests", ie dig, still going and unexplored. Using the previous example of sites on the mountains to the east, choosing La Colina, Muela and Mullir and then clicking unexplored would narrow the search down to unexplored sites on the hills.  

Science
Similarly, a choice can be made to view sites with archaeological or biological interest (as indicated in the database).

Order
The returned results can be ordered by name, site number, length (a list from longest to shortest) and depth (a list with deepest first).

Browse?
To aid browsing, the lists of sites returned are shown in small, scrollable windows. There is the option to choose a print view which simply lists all the chosen sites in a (long) table. This can be printed or copied and pasted into other applications.

Full site descriptions search
Whatever sites have been chosen can be (further) narrowed down by looking for certain words or phrases in the text description. The details of this facility are explained here.

Some examples
Question: Which caves on South Vega, North Vega, Cubija and El Naso had magnetic susceptibility work carried out?
Procedure: Choose areas Cubija, El Naso, N Vega and S Vega then type "magnetic susceptibilty" (with the double quotes) into the search box. Six caves are returned at the bottom of the search page.
Question: Which archaeological caves are mentioned in the 1975 expedition publication?
Procedure: Choose archaeology within the science choices then type "Kendal Caving Club and Manchester University Speleological Society, 1975" into the search box (including the double quotes) and 18 sites are listed. (It is likely that just typing "Society, 1975" would find the same caves.)
Question: What caves have good formations around La Secada and El Naso?
Procedure: (We assume that some mention is made in the text if there are decent formations). Choose La Secada and El Naso then in the text box type formations helictites calcite stal* (without double quotes). A search for these words returns 44 sites in those areas.

Juan Corrin 20/12/07