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Coastal caves on the Interview Island of Andaman Islands, India

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Abstract

By the presence of well-developed terraces on the Interview Island of Middle Andaman, we conducted an exploratory study on the Interview Island of Andaman and Nicobar Islands to understand the development of coastal caves here. During the investigation, we identified seven coastal caves on the island. Morphometric data of these study caves were used for further quantitative analysis by following the area/perimeter (A/P) and entrance width/maximum width (E/M) ratios to classify the cave types. We recognized from the results that the coastal caves could not be easily differentiated as flank margin caves based on A/P and E/M ratios. Nevertheless, based on their morphometry, we could confirm the occurrence of sea caves on the East and West coast of the Interview Island. The present study, as part of the more extensive ongoing research to conserve a cave-dwelling bird, allowed us to report and discuss the occurrence of the coastal caves, and their importance to understanding the speleological significance of the Interview Island.

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Fig. 1

adopted from Mylroie and Carew 1990)

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The raw data are available in the manuscript in the form of a table.

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Acknowledgements

The authors express gratitude towards the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) for funding the program to conserve the cave-dwelling Andaman Edible-nest Swiftlet in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, under which we conducted the discussed study. We acknowledge the Department of Environment and Forest, Andaman and Nicobar Islands for the required permissions and Divisional Forest Officer (WL) of Mayabunder, North and Middle Andaman especially for the permits and insights during the study. The field assistance and support from the forest department staff and the swiftlet protection team, Interview Island (Senthil, Sanjay, Keerti, Pratap, and Vipin) has made this study possible. Thanks to Drs. John E. Mylroie, Anjan Prusty, and P. A. Azeez for their valuable comments on the manuscript draft. We are also grateful to the reviewers for their help in improving the quality of the manuscript. We dedicate this work to Dr. Ravi Sankaran, who initiated speleological work in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

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Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Conservation Ecology, Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), Anaikatty P.O., Coimbatore, 641108, India

    Dhanusha Kawalkar & Shirish Manchi

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  1. Dhanusha Kawalkar
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  2. Shirish Manchi
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CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy). DK: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, and writing—original draft; SM: conceptualization, methodology, funding acquisition, project administration, resources, and writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Shirish Manchi.

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Kawalkar, D., Manchi, S. Coastal caves on the Interview Island of Andaman Islands, India. Carbonates Evaporites 35, 111 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13146-020-00646-w

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