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bonates.
Several challenges arose in drafting the new map. The first
was a matter of scale. Since the new map would be smaller
than the Davies et al. (1984) map, some details had to be
altered. The smallest karst areas were deleted because they
would not be visible as anything more than undistinguishable
dots. Karst areas in close proximity to other karst areas were
connected when they would appear connected when reproduced at the scale for publication. These modifications were
determined by printing out test versions of the map to see
which changes, if any, were needed.
The second challenge was to adjust for different map projections. Almost every map used was drawn at a different projection or suffered some shrink-swell changes in the paper versions so that the state borders could not be perfectly overlaid.
Figure 1 shows an example. Two maps are overlain: the Davies
et al. (1984) map and the new AGI karst map drawn on a different projection of the US state borders (the projection type
was not determined). The maps are registered to match the
state borders in the Yellowstone area at the junction of Idaho,
Montana, and Wyoming. In southwestern Wyoming, the borders are slightly off. As the nearby southern Idaho border
sweeps westward past that state, it is off by nearly 30 km
where it reaches California. In addition to the discrepancies in
the borders, the differences in the karst areas are also apparent.
The color areas reflect the karst areas traced from the older
map and show them offset from those areas which are shown
in black and white. The new karst map had to continually be
shifted and registered in different locations relative to the older
scanned maps, and only the karst areas immediately adjacent
to the registered areas were then traced.
The third and more difficult challenge was to determine
which karst boundary to follow when Davies et al. (1984) differed from other karst maps. The greatest discrepancy occurred
in Wyoming, as illustrated in Figure 2. The black and white
map shows the karst boundaries drawn by Davies et al. (1984)
and the color boundaries are based on Hill, Sutherland, and
Tierney (1976). While there is perfect concordance in the
Black Hills area, the north-central and western parts of the
state show moderate differences, and the southeastern area
shows little in common between the two maps. In the case of
Wyoming and other areas where I lack personal knowledge of
local karst development, I did what research I could to determine which map is most likely correct and generally defaulted
to the local experts who should know their areas best.
The fourth and greatest challenge was to define undefined
karst areas. More precisely, I defined pseudokarst areas. Karst
areas were usually delineated on lithology where it is safe to
assume that most mapped carbonates and evaporites produce
karst. However, the chances of pseudokarst being present in
volcanic rocks and unconsolidated sediments are far lower, so
such generalizations could not be made. Richards (unpub. data,
1999) provided helpful maps of volcanic pseudokarst in
Hawaii, which I supplemented from maps of cave locations in
other areas of the state. Bernie Szukalski (pers. comm., 2000;
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