WEBVTT - Why Is There a Rhino-Shaped Cave in Washington State?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey, brain

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<v Speaker 1>Stuff laur in the focal bomb here. Not all fossils

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<v Speaker 1>are bones, or shells or teeth. Most of us would

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<v Speaker 1>agree that mammoth tusks and Stegosaurus spikes are pretty darn cool.

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<v Speaker 1>And yet the fossil record is not limited to old

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<v Speaker 1>body parts. Fossils are defined as any naturally preserved remains

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<v Speaker 1>or traces of life forms that existed in the geologic past,

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<v Speaker 1>and that covers a lot of ground. And that's sort

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<v Speaker 1>of a pun because a fossil can take the form

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<v Speaker 1>of a footprint, the leaf impression, or a filled in

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<v Speaker 1>tunnel left behind by prehistoric land beavers. One of the

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<v Speaker 1>strangest fossils ever discovered is actually a cave. About fifteen

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<v Speaker 1>million years ago and what's now eastern Washington State, a

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<v Speaker 1>volcanic fissure eruption sent lava streaming into a shallow river

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<v Speaker 1>or lake where a rhino happened to be wallowing. A

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<v Speaker 1>layer of basaltic rock formed around the beast, preserving the

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<v Speaker 1>outline of its well cooked body long after the flesh

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<v Speaker 1>rotted away, leaving only a few bones. For millions of years,

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<v Speaker 1>this rhino shaped hole in the earth lay hidden in

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<v Speaker 1>the cliffs of Washington's Grant County near Blue Lake, a

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<v Speaker 1>popular hiking destination. By the nineteen thirties, erosion had worn

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<v Speaker 1>a hole into one end of the subterranean creature mold,

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<v Speaker 1>exposing it to the open air. Here's the story of

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<v Speaker 1>how the Blue Lake Rhino Cave came to be and

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<v Speaker 1>how four Seattle RockHounds accidentally discovered it. Only five species

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<v Speaker 1>of rhino are alive today, and none of the living

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<v Speaker 1>five species are indigenous to North or South America. However,

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<v Speaker 1>from about forty to seventy million years ago, rhinos were

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<v Speaker 1>common in North America somewhere hippo like semi aquatic animals.

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<v Speaker 1>Others had wicked tusks instead of the nasal horns we

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<v Speaker 1>see in their modern day counterparts. Paleontologists think that the

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<v Speaker 1>Blue Lake rhino cave likely formed around the corps of

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<v Speaker 1>a Die sathereum. While female Di sah Aium were hornless,

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<v Speaker 1>each adult male had a pair of small horns sitting

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<v Speaker 1>side by side near the tip of his snout. The

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<v Speaker 1>dimensions of the Blue Lake cave tell us that the

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<v Speaker 1>disratherium who left it behind was about eight feet that's

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<v Speaker 1>two point four meters long from snout to rear, and

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<v Speaker 1>stood a little bit less than four feet that's one

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<v Speaker 1>point two meters tall at the shoulder. In life, the

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<v Speaker 1>animal probably weighed about a ton or so. Nobody knows

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<v Speaker 1>if the creature had already died when it became entombed. However,

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<v Speaker 1>judging by the contours of the mold, it seems the

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<v Speaker 1>body was rather bloated. This could indicate the decomposition was

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<v Speaker 1>already setting in. Also, the legs are pointed skyward, telling

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<v Speaker 1>us the rhino may have been floating on its back

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<v Speaker 1>in a state of rigor mortis. The cave's walls are

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<v Speaker 1>made of fifteen million year old pillow basalt, a kind

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<v Speaker 1>of igneous rock that normally forms when lava contacts cold

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<v Speaker 1>water and rapidly cools down. So dead or alive, the

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<v Speaker 1>diceratherium must have been hanging out in a body of

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<v Speaker 1>water during a volcanic eruption. Then the lava came pouring in.

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<v Speaker 1>Maybe it got knocked over anyway, a lava can hit

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<v Speaker 1>temperatures of more than one thousand, six hundred degrees fahrenheit

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<v Speaker 1>that's nine degrees celsius. Ordinarily, this ultra hot material would

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<v Speaker 1>have burned right through to be skin, flesh, and bone,

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<v Speaker 1>but instead, the cold water converted the molten rock into

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<v Speaker 1>a tightly packed layer of hardening pillow basalt. The corpse

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<v Speaker 1>eventually rotted away, and even most of its bones disappeared,

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<v Speaker 1>yet the mold that enveloped the body stayed largely intact,

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<v Speaker 1>largely but not entirely. When you think about it, the

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<v Speaker 1>fact that we even know this weird little cave exists

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<v Speaker 1>is pretty amazing. Millions of years after the thing formed,

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<v Speaker 1>flowing water carved and opening in the mold right about

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<v Speaker 1>where the rhino's hind quarters used to be, yet erosion

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<v Speaker 1>hasn't destroyed it completely. Today, the cave's entrance is big

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<v Speaker 1>enough for an adult person to enter, but getting inside

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<v Speaker 1>may prove difficult for some visitors. You see, the Blue

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<v Speaker 1>Lake Rhino Cave is located in the face of a

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<v Speaker 1>cliff about three hundred feet or ninety one above the

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<v Speaker 1>lake that shares its name. During the summer of nineteen

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<v Speaker 1>thirty five, two adventurous couples from Seattle were hiking around

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<v Speaker 1>the cliff in searge of petrified wood. On their trip,

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<v Speaker 1>the quartet happened to discover the cave, they had the

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<v Speaker 1>honor of becoming the first people in recorded history to

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<v Speaker 1>enter the prehistoric rhino mold. Inside, they noticed a handful

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<v Speaker 1>of fragmentary animal bone fossils, including a partial jaw. These

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<v Speaker 1>were sent to paleobotanist George F. Beck of Central Washington University,

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<v Speaker 1>who couldn't resist visiting the site for himself. Upon gathering

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<v Speaker 1>more bones, he enlisted California Institute of Technology paleontologist Chester

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<v Speaker 1>Stock to identify them. Stock determined that the bony bits

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<v Speaker 1>came from an extinct rhino. Soon scientific community realized that

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<v Speaker 1>the cave itself was a full bodied cast of that

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<v Speaker 1>very same animal, a beast who last drew breath fifteen

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<v Speaker 1>million years ago. In ninety eight, a team from the

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<v Speaker 1>University of California at Berkeley heroically scaled the cliff and

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<v Speaker 1>filled the cave with plaster, eating a three dimensional duplicate

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<v Speaker 1>of the interior. Also, an exact hollow replica of the

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<v Speaker 1>cave was put on display at Seattle's Work Museum, where

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<v Speaker 1>it still stands today. Today's episode was written by Mark

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<v Speaker 1>Vancini and produced by Tyler clayg. Brain Stuff is a

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<v Speaker 1>production of I Heeart Radio's how Stuff Works. For more

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<v Speaker 1>in this and lots of other well preserved topics, visit

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