19 Jul Hidden Wonders of the underworld: Desert Edition
Posted at 12:58h
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Blog
by Daniel Lopez Salas
Coronado Cave map
After thousands, if not millions of years, the calcite deposits shifted and now we see the layers of deposit on the cave ceiling.
Geologically, it is even more wondrous than what can be seen with a quick run through. Being a microenvironment at the crossroad of 4 different ecosystems leads to many mysteries that we can only hope our young geologists in training can one day explain. The one mystery of the cave is something called the clay room. After crawling quite a few meters into a narrow passageway, we find a tiny entrance to a tiny cavity within the cave just tall enough for an average size human and wide enough for at most two people is a humid room with clay walls. No geologist has yet to explain this phenomenon, but we look out to our young geologists to earn their Cave scientist badge with their findings! Deeper into the rest of the cave we can still find many other cave structures such as cave bacon, cave popcorn, what once used to be columns, now split in two, soda straws, and many more. And if one is quiet enough, one can hear the process of stalagmite and stalactite formation in the dripping which will awe any geologist in the room, or the cave I should say. Though not a match to Mammoth cave in Kentucky or Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, this dry and dusty wild cave sure has plenty of history to go around and is a hidden gem in the vast desert populated with our Sky Islands.
Geologically, it is even more wondrous than what can be seen with a quick run through. Being a microenvironment at the crossroad of 4 different ecosystems leads to many mysteries that we can only hope our young geologists in training can one day explain. The one mystery of the cave is something called the clay room. After crawling quite a few meters into a narrow passageway, we find a tiny entrance to a tiny cavity within the cave just tall enough for an average size human and wide enough for at most two people is a humid room with clay walls. No geologist has yet to explain this phenomenon, but we look out to our young geologists to earn their Cave scientist badge with their findings! Deeper into the rest of the cave we can still find many other cave structures such as cave bacon, cave popcorn, what once used to be columns, now split in two, soda straws, and many more. And if one is quiet enough, one can hear the process of stalagmite and stalactite formation in the dripping which will awe any geologist in the room, or the cave I should say. Though not a match to Mammoth cave in Kentucky or Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, this dry and dusty wild cave sure has plenty of history to go around and is a hidden gem in the vast desert populated with our Sky Islands.
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