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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey wasn't this stuff to blow your mind?

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 3: today we're back with part two of our series about

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Speaker 3: a cave system in the US state of Arizona known

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Speaker 3: as Carchner Caverns. Rob, you wanted to talk about this

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Speaker 3: cave because you just visited in person with your family,

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Speaker 3: though though you'd been there once before, at least once

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Speaker 3: be four years ago, right, that's.

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Speaker 2: Right, like fourteen years ago. My wife and I visited

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Speaker 2: the area and went to Cartner Caverns and two or

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Speaker 2: two of the rooms, and then in the past couple

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Speaker 2: of months we went back with our kiddo and we

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Speaker 2: all experienced the big room, which we'll come back to

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Speaker 2: here in a bit.

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Speaker 3: So in the last episode we talked a lot about

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Speaker 3: the discovery and development history of the caverns, which involve

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Speaker 3: a lot more secrecy things like code names and you know,

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Speaker 3: secret messages than you might expect for the discovery of

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Speaker 3: a cave. Also some harrowing tales of people squeezing their

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Speaker 3: full adult bodies through little melon sized holes in rock.

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Speaker 3: And we also talked about a lot of the concerns

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Speaker 3: that go into responsible development of caves that are going

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Speaker 3: to be open to public tours, and how easily cave

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Speaker 3: ecosystems can get thrown out of whack by everything from

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Speaker 3: you know what's on the bottom of your boots to

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Speaker 3: cheeto dust, to lint to whatever. And we're back today

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Speaker 3: to talk about more, and.

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Speaker 2: I want to mention once more that in addition to

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Speaker 2: visiting the caves and going on on a guided tour

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Speaker 2: and going through the museum and so forth, one of

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Speaker 2: my key sources here is the book Cartoner Caverns, How

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Speaker 2: Two Cavers Discovered and Saved one of the Wonders of

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Speaker 2: the natural World, by Neil Miller holding up here for

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Speaker 2: the For any of y'all out there that are using video,

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Speaker 2: this is a great book, especially if you want a

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Speaker 2: much deeper dive, but a very accessible dive into all

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Speaker 2: the trials and tribulations the long journey of conservation for

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Speaker 2: Cartoner Caverns.

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Speaker 3: Get all the squeezing through holes and walking past rattlesnake

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Speaker 3: stories and all that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, who got stuck? Some people got stuck going

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Speaker 2: through the blowhole early on, you know, because they had

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Speaker 2: to bring in outsiders, you know, to check it out,

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Speaker 2: and not everybody was as good at squeezing through that

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Speaker 2: little hole.

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Speaker 3: So to kick things off for today, Rob, you mentioned

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Speaker 3: the last time that Carchner Caverns is sometimes referred to

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Speaker 3: as a living cave, and what that means is that

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Speaker 3: the cave is still hydrologically active, so water is still

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Speaker 3: flowing through the rock, and so the shape of the

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Speaker 3: cave is still actively changing year by year little by little,

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Speaker 3: and the mineral formations within the cave are still growing.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes limestone caves can become essentially fixed in place. Even

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Speaker 3: that's an approximate because you know, there are always things

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Speaker 3: that can change the shape of a cave, you know,

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Speaker 3: other kinds of erosion or of course any you know,

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Speaker 3: collapses or things like that. So you know, no cave

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Speaker 3: is really fixed on geological time. But some caves can

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Speaker 3: become more fixed, at least from a water flow standpoint,

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Speaker 3: if the flow of water that originally shaped them is

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Speaker 3: diverted or otherwise cut off. So these caves are sometimes

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Speaker 3: thought of as dead or dormant in form or maybe

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Speaker 3: reliced caves. But Kartchner is not one of those examples.

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Speaker 3: It is still alive and growing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, very hypercentile of the formations are still alive. And

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Speaker 2: that is one thing to keep in mind is that

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Speaker 2: even within a very wet, very living cave, you'll still

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Speaker 2: you know, water is still has to flow down in

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Speaker 2: just the right places for these formations to continue to grow.

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Speaker 2: And sometimes particular formations get cut off they're no longer growing.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes they fall over or break, you know, under their

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Speaker 2: own weight or because of human or animal movement or

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Speaker 2: even seismic activity that sort of thing. But then they

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Speaker 2: can also be sort of reactivated if the water situation

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Speaker 2: changes even slightly.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So, I know we wanted to talk about some

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Speaker 3: of these specific types of formations or speliothems you see

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Speaker 3: inside Carchner, but I guess before that we should back

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Speaker 3: up a step and do a review on the basic

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Speaker 3: process that forms a limestone cave. Usually goes like this.

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Speaker 3: You've got rain water falls to the ground and it

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Speaker 3: seeps through the soil. Where As it passes through the soil,

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Speaker 3: it absorbs carbon dioxide, thus becoming weakly acidic. So the

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Speaker 3: water now contains carbonic acid, and this acidic water seeps

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Speaker 3: down into the ground until it reaches or flows into

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Speaker 3: the porous limestone layer, and then as the acidic water

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Speaker 3: passes through the limestone, it dissolves little bits of the

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Speaker 3: mineral content of the rock. So in this case, the

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Speaker 3: rock would be calcite or calcium carbonate, and it carries

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Speaker 3: away that dissolved mineral. Actually it's ionic constituents, so it

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Speaker 3: turns into calcium ions and bicarbonate ions. It dissolves those

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Speaker 3: into the acidic water and it carries them along in

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Speaker 3: the liquid. However, when the acidic water emerges from the

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Speaker 3: rock into the air filled void of the cave, which

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Speaker 3: usually has a lower CO two concentration, it off gases.

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Speaker 3: It's kind of like opening a can of Seltzer carbonated beverage.

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Speaker 3: The dissolved carbon dioxide is released from the water becomes

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Speaker 3: a gas in the air. And once this happens, now

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Speaker 3: the acidity of the water has been lowered and the

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Speaker 3: water loses its ability to retain the constituents of calcite

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Speaker 3: in solution. So the dissolved calcium and bicarbonate ions come

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Speaker 3: out of solution and then they form the mineral calcite

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Speaker 3: once again. So now as this water runs along surfaces

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Speaker 3: and drips from ceiling to floor in these air filled

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Speaker 3: voids in a cave. It creates deposits of calcium carbonate

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Speaker 3: that can no longer be held in solution, and these

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Speaker 3: drip points become things like stalactites and stalagmites and other

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Speaker 3: weirder things that we'll get to in just a second,

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Speaker 3: that they form as the calcite gradually accumulates and crystallizes

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Speaker 3: over time.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's so many different formations, and the crazy thing

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Speaker 2: is we haven't even completely figured out how all of

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Speaker 2: them form.

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Speaker 4: Oh yeah, but in.

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Speaker 2: General, yeah, they form according to the movements of water,

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Speaker 2: which can can certainly take on that simple top down

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Speaker 2: stalactite stalagmite model that we're all used to, I think,

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Speaker 2: but you can also get all sorts of other formations

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Speaker 2: that are typically named after foods, informally by hungry cavers.

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Speaker 2: You see this time and time again, because what we

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Speaker 2: were talking about in the first episode, you don't want

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Speaker 2: to have a big meal before you go in. You

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Speaker 2: can bring some snacks, but you got to carry out

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Speaker 2: everything you bring in, so you know, generally cavers are hungry.

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Speaker 2: Two of my favorites in this category are cave bacon

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Speaker 2: and fried eggs.

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Speaker 3: Let's hear about them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so fried eggs, and I encourage everyone to

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Speaker 2: look up images of these if they're not forthcoming or

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Speaker 2: you don't know what I'm talking about. But fried eggs

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Speaker 2: or calcite deposits that develop in existing stalagmites from overhead drips,

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Speaker 2: sometimes taking on a distinct egg yolk appearance in the middle.

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Speaker 2: These can look very Sometimes they don't look exactly like

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Speaker 2: a fried egg, but they look they look gnarly. I'll

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Speaker 2: go ahead and say that.

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Speaker 3: Well, can I say the picture you have in the

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Speaker 3: document here for us to look at is my kind

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Speaker 3: of fried egg. You know, there are different ways to

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Speaker 3: make a fried egg. Some like a very gently fried

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Speaker 3: egg where the white part is going to end up

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Speaker 3: being very flat and untextured whites, and then a very

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Speaker 3: you know, sort of a gently gently warmed yolk area.

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Speaker 3: I like a kind of hard fried egg where the

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Speaker 3: white gets very frothy and bubbly and browned on the underside.

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Speaker 3: And that's what it looks like here. It looks like,

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Speaker 3: you know, you've got a kind of yolk in the middle,

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Speaker 3: and then the white all around it looks very bubbly.

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Speaker 3: It's textured.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Now, my favorite of these, so it's certainly

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Speaker 2: my favorite of the formations that observed on my recent

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Speaker 2: tour is the cave bacon. Cave bacon is a thin,

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Speaker 2: wavy flowstone drapery and this is formed by calcite rich

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Speaker 2: water trickling down sloped cave ceilings. The way it was

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Speaker 2: explained to me on the tour is, think about when

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Speaker 2: you're taking a shower and you reach up to adjust

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Speaker 2: the shower head and water veins down your arm. Imagine

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Speaker 2: that except calcite rich water that forms this thin rock

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Speaker 2: formation over time kind of like hanging down like a

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Speaker 2: kind of you know, like a shroud or something. So

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Speaker 2: they're beautifully translucent. Really when when lit from behind, so

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Speaker 2: you know, you get somebody with a light lamp they

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Speaker 2: can catch from behind and the light will will actually

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Speaker 2: go through the cave bacon and it has this marbled

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Speaker 2: appearance that just you know, unmistakably looks like bacon.

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Speaker 3: Streaky bacon for our UK based listeners.

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Speaker 2: Knows that what they call it in the UK streaky bacon.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know you've got the different haus. You've got

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Speaker 3: streaky bacon, which is made from the pork belly, so

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Speaker 3: you get this striated, streaky appearance. And then I think

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Speaker 3: in the UK a lot of bacon is back bacon,

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Speaker 3: which has made more from the loin. I think I

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Speaker 3: could be wrong about that, but it's got like a

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Speaker 3: bigger eye of meat in it and has less of

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Speaker 3: that just strata geological layers kind of appearance that American

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Speaker 3: bacon does.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so this stuff's really picturesque. Also, of note, so

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Speaker 2: to straw formations, which are also mildly the food based

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Speaker 2: in their naming. Yeah, these are incredible, really delicate, thin

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Speaker 2: hollow tubes that hang down quite fragile, so fragile that

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Speaker 2: even young bats learning to fly and echo locate can

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Speaker 2: bump into them and knock them down. So it's easy

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Speaker 2: to imagine if baby bats are able to damage these,

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Speaker 2: human cavers can very easily break them, and sometimes they

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Speaker 2: just break off under their own weight.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, So I was looking up the formation of soda

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Speaker 3: straws because I got very interested in these. Again. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: you're exactly right there. They're very thin, very delicate. I mean,

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Speaker 3: straw is the perfect comparison. They're hollow tubes and they're

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Speaker 3: about as thin as straws. I mean I guess they

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Speaker 3: can take slightly different thicknesses, but a lot of them

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Speaker 3: really do just look like long straws. And it turns

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Speaker 3: out the soda straw is the early stage of formation

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Speaker 3: of a stalactite, So most stalactites were once soda straws

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Speaker 3: when they were little baby stalactites. My understanding of the

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Speaker 3: process is that so they're drip formations of course, you know,

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Speaker 3: it's water places where water drips from the ceiling above,

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Speaker 3: and they begin as hollow tubes because the water drips

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Speaker 3: kind of slowly from the ceiling, and each droplet comes

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Speaker 3: into contact with the air and loses CO two, mainly

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Speaker 3: at its outer edges. So the calcite the precipitates out

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Speaker 3: of each drop tends to be left behind in a

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Speaker 3: ring shape from where the you know, the droplet emerges.

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Speaker 3: And then over time the straw will get filled in

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Speaker 3: by mineral content. And once this inner straw tube is

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Speaker 3: finally fully blocked and water can no longer drip down

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Speaker 3: the straw through the middle, it will instead have to

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Speaker 3: run along the outside, and this is what causes a

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Speaker 3: stalactite to take on the more familiar conical shape, you know,

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Speaker 3: shaped more like a turnip or a carrot like or

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Speaker 3: not a turnip, more like a parsnip er a carrot.

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Speaker 3: You know, the cone because the water is now going

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Speaker 3: to be running along the outside, but in the early stages,

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Speaker 3: when it still has this hollow tube in the middle,

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Speaker 3: it remains this thin, delicate, long straw shape.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so you know, these are some of the

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Speaker 2: little guys. But of course, especially the large chambers in

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Speaker 2: cartooner caverns, these are just amazing. They're just like you know,

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Speaker 2: we often compare them to cathedrals because that's the scale

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Speaker 2: of these formations that have just been formed over vast

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Speaker 2: periods of time. And you know via this active water flow.

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Speaker 3: Now, Rob, which room is it where they've got the

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Speaker 3: formation known as Kubla Khan, the really big column with

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Speaker 3: all of the it looks like a I don't know,

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Speaker 3: a Godzilla sized candle that's been melting.

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Speaker 2: I believe this one is in the throne room. So

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Speaker 2: this would have been one that I saw fourteen years ago.

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Speaker 3: Okay, no Kubla Khan for you this year.

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Speaker 2: No, no, but that really, especially for folks that are

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Speaker 2: thinking of going, like either tour is going to amaze you.

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Speaker 2: You're not gonna you're not going to be hurting.

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Speaker 4: For amazing formations.

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Speaker 3: So one very interesting, lesser known type of formation that

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Speaker 3: you find in Kartchner is one I wanted to talk

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Speaker 3: about called heliictite.

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Speaker 2: Did you see any of this in the cave, Rob, Yes,

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Speaker 2: some of this was pointed out to us, and yeah,

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Speaker 2: this was really amazing.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, I've got a picture in the outline we

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Speaker 3: can refer to here. This is one that the park

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Speaker 3: uploaded to their Facebook page this year. It didn't say

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Speaker 3: what room it's in, so I can't say exactly where

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Speaker 3: in the cave it comes from. But helictites are again,

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Speaker 3: they're calcite based deposits. They're formed from the same basic

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Speaker 3: chemistry as normal stalactites and stalagmites, but by a different

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Speaker 3: mechanism of deposition. So they're formed less by dripping and

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Speaker 3: more by capillary reaction and seeping. So they do not

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Speaker 3: look like regular stalactites and stalagmites. In fact, to me,

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Speaker 3: they do not look like geology at all. They look

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Speaker 3: like biology. For one thing, they don't have the helictites

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Speaker 3: do not have the straight vertical up and down orientation

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Speaker 3: that you see with stalactites and stalagmites in the picture

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Speaker 3: we've gotten the outline here. What they look like to

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Speaker 3: me are tree roots. It looks like a big, twisting,

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Speaker 3: curling root ball with these tendrils spiraling out into the

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Speaker 3: air from a thicker central column.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a It really does feel like there's some

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Speaker 2: sort of a reaching, a seeking involved here that's more

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Speaker 2: biological than geological, like you said.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like a growth pattern looking for water or something.

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Speaker 3: So I was reading about the process that forms helictites

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Speaker 3: on the website of the National Spileeological Society, which you

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Speaker 3: can find at caves dot org. And according to their

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Speaker 3: fact page written by somebody named Dave Bunnel, the term

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Speaker 3: helictite is used to refer to quote contorted depositional spiliothems

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Speaker 3: which grow in any direction defying gravity. And they're also

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Speaker 3: sometimes called non gravitomorphic, so not primarily shaped by gravity.

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Speaker 3: These are the the anti gravity formations. It seems that

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Speaker 3: these start the same way, or basically the same way

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Speaker 3: as the other formations we've been talking about. So you've

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Speaker 3: got the water with dissolved calcite constituents seeping through the

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Speaker 3: porous rock, and at some point it reaches the air

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Speaker 3: filled cavity of the cave where some of the CO

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Speaker 3: two escapes the water and the calcite comes out of

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Speaker 3: solution and mineralizes. But the difference is that helictites are

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Speaker 3: formed in areas where the flow of the water through

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Speaker 3: the rock is very slow. It's slow enough that it's

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Speaker 3: not actually coming out in big masses and having to

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Speaker 3: drip away. So instead of these big droplets that gather

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Speaker 3: at the end of a soda straw or a stalactite

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Speaker 3: and then fall off every few seconds, at the tip

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Speaker 3: of it helictite, you've only got a tiny film of

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Speaker 3: water seeping through and being exposed to the air, and

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Speaker 3: there's so little water that the surface tension causes it

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Speaker 3: to stick to the end of the formation rather than

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Speaker 3: falling off. And then Bunnele writes, quote growth continues through

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Speaker 3: a tiny central capillary channel. So Roub, when you see

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Speaker 3: these little spikes and roots coming off, imagine that in

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Speaker 3: the middle of them there's an extremely tiny, little little tube,

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Speaker 3: you know, not a soda straw size tube, but a tiny, tiny,

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Speaker 3: microscopic little tube, a capillary. And then Bunnele continues, quote,

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Speaker 3: which the solution flows through via hydrostatic and capillary pressure

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Speaker 3: to emerge and deposit calcite at the tip. In higher

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Speaker 3: flow conditions, it can come out. It can come out

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Speaker 3: the tip and travel back along the length of the

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Speaker 3: helic tite, making it thicker. Okay, so that's that's how

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Speaker 3: you get these these formations. But how do you end

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Speaker 3: up with the twisted gravity defying shapes? Like what what's

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Speaker 3: determining the emergence of these shapes? And Bunnel identifies several

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Speaker 3: different causes or possible causes. You mentioned earlier that actually

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Speaker 3: the science of how exactly some cave formations are made

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Speaker 3: is not entirely settled. There are some open questions, and

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Speaker 3: I think it seems in the case of helictite there

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Speaker 3: are still some open questions.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the one I was referring to for sure. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: where we have some great ideas, but you know, it's

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Speaker 2: hard to observe these in real time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So Bunnle identifies several possible causes. One thing is

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Speaker 3: mineral impurities in the calcite might determine, you know, weird

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Speaker 3: patterns of growth. Another is quote wedge shaped crystals causing

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Speaker 3: uneven deposition. So if you've got crystals that don't grow symmetrically,

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Speaker 3: you know, they're kind of growing in a wedge shape.

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Speaker 3: They're going to cause a directional curling as the crystal

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Speaker 3: extends itself. And then also apparently during dry periods, sometimes

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Speaker 3: the central capillary in the formation gets stopped up, so

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Speaker 3: when water resumes flowing through this little spike of rock,

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Speaker 3: it goes not through the middle, but is forced out

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Speaker 3: through a new channel in the side. And if you

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Speaker 3: repeat this over and over, I guess you get gravity

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Speaker 3: defying shapes. And then finally, one thought is air currents.

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Speaker 3: So if there is airflow in the cave, you know,

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Speaker 3: gentle wind in the cave, it could influence a gravity

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Speaker 3: defying direction of growth of a formation like this, maybe

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Speaker 3: because you get asymmetrical evaporation. So if there's faster evaporation

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Speaker 3: on one side of the spike then the other, it

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Speaker 3: could end up causing the spike to essentially grow over

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Speaker 3: time in one direction. And the author notes that sometimes

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Speaker 3: you see helick tites facing all the same direction down

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Speaker 3: a cave passage, kind of like I was imagining, like

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Speaker 3: those spikes that sort of go backwards in the maw

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Speaker 3: of a sea turtle.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good comparison. Yeah, Yeah, definitely looks gnarly

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Speaker 2: and adds to this feel of a living cave, of

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Speaker 2: a live cave, because it looks a lot like again,

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Speaker 2: like biological growths to the untrained eye.

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Speaker 3: But this is definitely one where I would urge people

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Speaker 3: to go look up a bunch of different pictures of helictites,

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Speaker 3: because they don't all look the same. You get a

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Speaker 3: lot of different kinds of helictites and different Some of

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Speaker 3: them have this melted wax appearance we were talking about,

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Speaker 3: you know, melting candles earlier. Some look like melted wax,

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Speaker 3: some look like worms. You've ever seen that. I remember

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Speaker 3: there is a picture I've looked at many times that

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Speaker 3: I think is hosted somewhere in a Japanese parasite museum

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Speaker 3: that is like a marine mammal stomach that is erupting

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Speaker 3: with parasitic worms, and they preserved this and formaldehyde, I believe.

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Speaker 3: So I'm just thinking of that because I'm currently looking

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Speaker 3: at a picture we have in our outline of a

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Speaker 3: cave in Australia that has a bunch of white calcite

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Speaker 3: helic tites growing out of a cave wall. Looks exactly

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Speaker 3: like that stomach erupting with worms.

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Speaker 2: It does look like some sort of strange Eldric horror,

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Speaker 2: doesn't it. All Right, well, let's uh, let's move on

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Speaker 2: to an actual form of life, of biological life that

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Speaker 2: is found in the caves. Let's talk a bit about bats.

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Speaker 2: And but before we do, I want to come back

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Speaker 2: to something you asked me about in the last episode.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

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Speaker 2: You asked me if the bats at Cartoner Cavern came

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Speaker 2: and went via the same sinkhole and tiny blowhole as

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Speaker 2: the human explorers. Yeah, I said yes, and that is correct.

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Speaker 2: But I want to share another great bit from Miller's

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Speaker 2: book that discusses this. So Miller points out that the

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Speaker 2: bats would frequently come in and out of that blowhole

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Speaker 2: on summer evenings to forage for insects. Toughsentinan, the two

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Speaker 2: explorers and discoverers of Cartoon Caverns would sometimes sit at

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Speaker 2: the top of the sinkhole around this time and they

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Speaker 2: would just watch the bats. Uh. Yeah, that sounds sounds cool,

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Speaker 2: sounds very relaxing. But then there's this I'm gonna read

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Speaker 2: from the book here. Quote Tough Santenan's roommate Brad Barber

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Speaker 2: describes leaving through the blow Whole crawlway just before sunset

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Speaker 2: on his first visit to Xanadu and feeling something brush

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Speaker 2: against his face. When there was finally enough space above

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Speaker 2: his head so he could turn and look back, he

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Speaker 2: saw a line of bats coming through the crawlway at

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Speaker 2: surprising speed. By the time he reached the sinkhole quote,

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Speaker 2: they were pouring out like a washing machine. He recalled.

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Speaker 2: A couple other things I want to mention just real

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Speaker 2: quick before you get into the gritty details about this

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Speaker 2: particular bat species. It is a threatened species and they're

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Speaker 2: roosting in the cave. Served as a biological imperative for

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Speaker 2: the Arizona Nature Conservancy Board to act regarding Kartchner caverns,

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Speaker 2: So it does play. Their presence there plays an important

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Speaker 2: role in the conservation efforts. But also we've been talking

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Speaker 2: about bats being like the only mammal to access the caves,

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Speaker 2: and for the most part that is true, you know,

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Speaker 2: up until humans too. Humans in particular found their way down,

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Speaker 2: but they aren't the only mammals to ever access the caves.

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Speaker 2: So bones of a thirty four thousand year old horse

391
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Speaker 2: and an eighty thousand year old Shasta ground sloth have

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Speaker 2: been discovered in Cartenter caverns, clearly dating back to a

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Speaker 2: time when there was some other access point besides the blowhole,

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Speaker 2: and also to a time when the surface vegetation an

395
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Speaker 2: environment was somewhat different. The sloth would have accessed the

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Speaker 2: cave during the Pleistocene epoch, so a long time ago,

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Speaker 2: and I think it's unknown exactly like what its story is,

398
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Speaker 2: how it ended up to come into these caves and die.

399
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Speaker 2: I think when Tussan Tinan first discovered the bones, they

400
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Speaker 2: thought it was a bison, and so for a while

401
00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:44,960
Speaker 2: they were to discovered that there was to refer to

402
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Speaker 2: as the bison bones. And it was only later that

403
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Speaker 2: someone came in and said, oh, this is not a bison,

404
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Speaker 2: this is a sloth.

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Speaker 3: Interesting. Yeah, well, I'm trying to picture the ground slows

406
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Speaker 3: doing the coat hangar maneuver.

407
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Speaker 2: But some big animals can squeeze, but I don't think

408
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Speaker 2: that's how this one got in.

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Speaker 3: No, Okay, So yeah, they think it was probably closed

410
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Speaker 3: and it had been opened and then was closed.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So Rob, the other day you suggested I look into

413
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Speaker 3: the cave system's key bat species. Of course there are

414
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Speaker 3: multiple bat species that go into the cave sometimes, but

415
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 3: the vast majority of the bats in there are this

416
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Speaker 3: one species, and this species is the only one that

417
00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:34,000
Speaker 3: roosts does seasonal maternity roosting in the cave, and that

418
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:37,879
Speaker 3: species is Myotis velafer, the name of which means something

419
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:42,800
Speaker 3: like mouse eared sail bearer. So the genus name Miotis

420
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Speaker 3: is from the Greek for mouse ear, and the species

421
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:49,760
Speaker 3: name velafer comes from the Latin vellum and fera to

422
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:53,400
Speaker 3: carry a sale. More commonly, these bats are known as

423
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Speaker 3: the cave Myotis and they are found in populations throughout

424
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Speaker 3: the southwestern United States, Mexico, and Central America.

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Speaker 2: I think I may mention this already, but I've only

426
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Speaker 2: seen photos of these bats as they were not there

427
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 2: on my recent visit to Kartchner. My past visit was

428
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Speaker 2: to other chambers the rotunda in the throne room, but

429
00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 2: this time I was in the chamber where the bats

430
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 2: would be during their seasonal roosting. But again, when the

431
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 2: bats are about to come back, they shut everything down

432
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Speaker 2: in there, They take the lights out. Nobody goes in

433
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 2: inside there until or at least you know, tours don't

434
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 2: go inside there until the bats are well done with

435
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 2: what they need to do.

436
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:35,119
Speaker 3: So regarding their appearance, most of the sources I was

437
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 3: looking at classify them as medium or medium to large bats,

438
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:41,040
Speaker 3: which I found funny because in the pictures I'm looking

439
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:44,119
Speaker 3: at they look very small. But yeah, maybe I don't know,

440
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:46,879
Speaker 3: maybe just the general scale of bats runs to the

441
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:50,400
Speaker 3: smaller end, but they are thought of as a medium

442
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 3: to large insectivorous bats. Insect eating bat with brown and

443
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 3: black fur on the back and usually some paler coloration

444
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 3: on the belly. The color patterns, I think, vary across

445
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:05,879
Speaker 3: the animal's geographic range. It has short pointed ears and

446
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 3: tiny little beady eyes. And once again this is a

447
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,480
Speaker 3: subject that's worth an image search because the cave myotis

448
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:15,680
Speaker 3: in a lot of the pictures you can find. It's

449
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 3: hitting a very funny pose. It's got the mouth halfway

450
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 3: open showing a bunch of little pinpoint teeth, like it's

451
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 3: just kind of like, hey, what's up, guys. It's got

452
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 3: a very like time to party appearance. I guess, on

453
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,640
Speaker 3: a more sour note, that's probably like the animals showing

454
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 3: a face of extreme distress at being photographed and captured,

455
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 3: but anyway, so the males are typically smaller than the females.

456
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 3: Mating generally occurs in the fall, but females will often

457
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:49,639
Speaker 3: store sperm until spring, and then pregnant females usually gather

458
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:54,439
Speaker 3: in communal maternity roosts of several thousand individuals in the

459
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,120
Speaker 3: spring and in the early summer to give birth. These

460
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 3: roosts are most often in caves, but of course the

461
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 3: species will make do with other structures like abandoned buildings

462
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:09,840
Speaker 3: or mines, bridges, and things like that. I mentioned this

463
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 3: a minute ago. They're insectivorous, so they will eat insects

464
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 3: of all kinds, including flies and mosquitoes, moths, beetles, and weavils,

465
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 3: which they hunt by echolocation. To learn more about their

466
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:27,399
Speaker 3: role in Krchner caverns in particular, I dug up a

467
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 3: scientific paper from nineteen ninety nine published in the Journal

468
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 3: of Cave and Kars Studies by the bat researchers Ronnie

469
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 3: Sidner and Debbie Butcher, called Bats of Carchinger Cavern State Park, Arizona.

470
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:44,920
Speaker 3: The point of this study was to establish a basic

471
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:48,639
Speaker 3: observational account and inventory of the bats living in the

472
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 3: caves before the caves were developed for the public. At

473
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:57,199
Speaker 3: the time, Carchner Caverns was a summer maternity roost for

474
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 3: somewhere between one thousand and two thousand miotis vela for

475
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:03,359
Speaker 3: bats every year. I think usually closer to the lower

476
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 3: end of that range. I don't know if the numbers

477
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,159
Speaker 3: have changed significantly since the years of the study, but

478
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 3: you know you're going to be usually getting like one

479
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 3: thoy fifteen hundred something like that. Bats coming to give

480
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 3: birth every summer. There every spring or summer, so between

481
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 3: April and mid September, the pregnant females of this population

482
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 3: return to the cave to give birth and raise their young.

483
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:30,879
Speaker 3: The paper notes that these bats are crucial to the

484
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:34,640
Speaker 3: cave ecosystem because of their poop, because of the guano

485
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 3: they provide. So bats fly in to roost in the

486
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 3: spring and summer. The bats poop, and their poop provides

487
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:46,399
Speaker 3: nutrients that form the basis of the complex invertebrate food

488
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 3: web inside the cave. In other words, the rest of

489
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 3: the fauna, the obligate invertebrates and the other things that

490
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 3: live in the cave could not survive without the bats.

491
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 3: Their guano is the basis of it all. So the

492
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 3: loss of a roosting bat population would probably cause the

493
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:10,280
Speaker 3: collapse of the entire cave ecosystem. You know this has

494
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:13,480
Speaker 3: come up on the show before. But try to imagine

495
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:17,640
Speaker 3: continuing our top side food web if the sun stopped shining.

496
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:19,879
Speaker 3: You know, you're just like now, you are missing a

497
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 3: crucial base level input on the creation of food resources.

498
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, Baguano is sunshine. I believe we've put it that

499
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 2: way before.

500
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, So many caves in general, and this cave in particular,

501
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 3: are highly dependent on their roosting bat populations to provide

502
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 3: nutrients and support the food web there, and some species

503
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 3: of bats can be very sensitive to human disturbance of

504
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 3: roosting caves. The author is run through a basic background

505
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 3: of cave roosting research, which has found, among other things,

506
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 3: that female bats will often try to select a roost

507
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 3: with high temperature and humidity because as a moist, high

508
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 3: warm environment it helps their newborns grow. That's good for

509
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 3: their offspring. And remember what we mentioned about the climate

510
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 3: inside carchon or caverns. It's very often quite warm and

511
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 3: quite moist inside. You know, you can get areas of

512
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 3: the cave that are like seventy one degrees fahrenheit and

513
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 3: ninety nine percent humidity, and the authors of this paper

514
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 3: found that in their they found in their research that

515
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 3: bats often seek the warmest, highest humidity spots within the

516
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 3: cave for rearing young.

517
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 2: It was pointed out to me on the tour as

518
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 2: well that once they have found the cave, once they're

519
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 2: in the cave, the exact place where they'll roost for

520
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 2: their young, essentially where they'll give birth and all, it's

521
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 2: going to be. It's going to be pretty high up too,

522
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:49,600
Speaker 2: like which part of the cave has the biggest fall

523
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 2: possible for young bats, just you know, getting their fly on.

524
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:57,719
Speaker 3: I wonder if that also has to do with heat rising.

525
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, it may it may well be a factor as well.

526
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 3: Just a guess there. That could be wrong.

527
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 4: I don't know.

528
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 3: But they also say that our research has found female

529
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 3: bats tend to be loyal to their favored roost, so

530
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 3: if they find a good roost location, they're going to

531
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 3: come back again and again across the years. Bats are

532
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 3: especially vulnerable around the time of parturition, around the time

533
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 3: they give birth. Right after they give birth, there is

534
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 3: a small time window in which the mothers imprint on

535
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 3: the sound and smell of their newborns and the author's

536
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 3: right quote. If disturbed prior to this bonding, the female

537
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 3: may not recognize her offspring and therefore will not attempt

538
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 3: to care for it. So you know, that's one reason

539
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 3: that especially around the time these bats are giving birth,

540
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 3: it's a highly sensitive time for them. Also, if disturbed

541
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 3: right after birth, bats may try to relocate to either

542
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 3: a different part of the cave that seems more protected,

543
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 3: or may try to leave the cave entirely if something

544
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 3: is garring them there, and whatever location they moved to

545
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 3: is probably not going to be as ideal in terms

546
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 3: of temperature, humidity, or other environmental conditions. Also, mothers may

547
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 3: drop their young during transport, which can lead to juvenile mortality.

548
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 3: In fact, I think they were citing research that this

549
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 3: happens very often if mothers have newborns that are not

550
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 3: able to fly yet and they try to move them

551
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 3: around or transport them somewhere, they very often get dropped.

552
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,240
Speaker 3: So you don't want to be scaring bats that have

553
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 3: just given birth. So you get this mounting sense of

554
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 3: interlocking dependence and fragility. So much depends upon things being

555
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 3: chill for the bats. The cave system depends on the

556
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 3: roosting bats, and the bat population is especially sensitive at

557
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 3: the time around the birth of new young so there's

558
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 3: just a lot of vulnerability here. The authors of the

559
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:58,719
Speaker 3: paper talk about a bunch of the methods they use

560
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 3: to try to count and study the bats without disturbing them.

561
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 3: For example, they so they rigorously tried to avoid being

562
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 3: in the cave at the same time as the bats.

563
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 3: They did not venture inside the cave during roosting season. Instead,

564
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 3: they collected information about the bats during the off season

565
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 3: through secondary measures like tracking the seasonal accumulation of guano

566
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 3: and counting the numbers of dead bats on the cave

567
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 3: floor under roosting areas, and then during the roosting season

568
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 3: they did study them, but not inside the cave. They

569
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 3: tried to create an estimated inventory by sitting outside the

570
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 3: cave at the sinkhole and having somebody there with a

571
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 3: laptop just counting bats observed flying in and out, which

572
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 3: sounds like a wonderfully tedious job.

573
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, you want to get the undergrads on that one, right.

574
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 3: Yeah. But then there's just in this section there's an

575
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 3: understatedly adorable observation. So they're tracking the number of entrances

576
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 3: and exits from the cave across the season, and they write, quote,

577
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 3: it is suspected that the increase in the number of

578
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 3: exiting bats from June slash July to August is partially

579
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 3: due to the presence of young bats beginning to fly. Also,

580
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 3: in the last episode, I mentioned an observation of a

581
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 3: natural predator attacking the bats at Kartchner, so I wanted

582
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 3: to come back and fill in some detail on that.

583
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 3: This is in the spring of nineteen ninety one. The

584
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 3: authors say that they noticed bats starting to arrive on

585
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 3: schedule in April and May, but then they write quote, However,

586
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 3: in late May, the exit flights became delayed sporadic, and

587
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 3: the total population size declined. On June fourth, the carcasses

588
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 3: of forty five dead bats were found near the bat window.

589
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:51,400
Speaker 3: We removed these from the cave to determine the cause

590
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 3: of death. Observers counting bats on the next two nights

591
00:33:54,760 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 3: watched a ringtail species Basariskus a studus leave the cave.

592
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 3: The following evening, we used a night vision scope and

593
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 3: observe the ringtail sitting directly in the bat window. Apparently

594
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 3: this animal was responsible for killing the bats, and it's

595
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 3: made especially I don't know, kind of sad, but also

596
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:18,279
Speaker 3: funny if you know what a ringtail looks like, because

597
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:22,240
Speaker 3: they're adorable. They look like little squirrel, raccoon, kitty cats.

598
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 3: They got big ears and big eyes and the striped

599
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 3: pattern on their tails. But they are little predators.

600
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,799
Speaker 2: So this little guy was hanging out like on or

601
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:35,719
Speaker 2: in the sinkhole and kind of like reaching out and

602
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:38,800
Speaker 2: grabbing snacks out of the bat's flight paths.

603
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 3: It doesn't give any more detail. I don't think they

604
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 3: observed exactly what it was doing, but that's my guess.

605
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 3: So if it's hanging out at this narrow window that

606
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 3: the bats have to crawl or pass through to get

607
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 3: in and out of the cave, I'd imagine yes, it's

608
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:54,439
Speaker 3: just like sitting there and swatting them as they come through. Though,

609
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 3: it says, you know, if they found forty how many

610
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,120
Speaker 3: dead bats they found, like forty five dead bats, it

611
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,319
Speaker 3: sounds like this predator is killing more bats than it

612
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 3: needs to eat. I don't know if it was practicing

613
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 3: or what.

614
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:10,080
Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, we've discussed this before in different mammals where

615
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 2: sometimes if there's an abundant prey, an animal will not

616
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,279
Speaker 2: just say oh, I'm good enough, they will know they'll

617
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 2: kill quite a few.

618
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:20,879
Speaker 3: They're not crunching the numbers on what they need, they're

619
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:25,280
Speaker 3: just they're probably just like acting on an instinct to it. Yeah.

620
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:29,360
Speaker 3: So the researchers did not interfere here, and the ringtail

621
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 3: left the cave after June sixth, but the bat population

622
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 3: continued to decline for a while. They say, quote the

623
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 3: bat population reached a minimum on the fourteenth of June,

624
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:42,760
Speaker 3: when only forty nine bats were counted leaving the cave.

625
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,759
Speaker 3: In other years, a bat count at this time was

626
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 3: about one thousand bats, so huge impact from this ringtail.

627
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 3: And the authors point out that this is an example

628
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 3: of how delicate the roosting population is and how badly

629
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 3: an external interference can harm it. I mean, this isn't

630
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 3: a human thing. This is a natural predator coming in

631
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 3: and exploiting this one. You know, this choke point on

632
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:12,839
Speaker 3: entering and exiting the cave. And they say that after this,

633
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 3: after the ringtail left, the bat population slowly increased again,

634
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 3: reaching around four hundred in July, but a lot of

635
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 3: the bats were gone and that doesn't necessarily mean they

636
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 3: were dead. I think a lot probably tried to relocate

637
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 3: to somewhere that seemed safer but may not actually have

638
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,919
Speaker 3: been as good in terms of, you know, raising their young.

639
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 3: And so they say this was the lowest year for

640
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:39,840
Speaker 3: bat populations that they recorded. However, there's something telling about

641
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:43,239
Speaker 3: the fact that a few hundred bats apparently came back

642
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 3: even after their roosting cave temporarily became this little, you know,

643
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:51,800
Speaker 3: kitty cat type animal death trap. They say this increase

644
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:54,880
Speaker 3: in numbers despite the threat of predation may indicate that

645
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:58,480
Speaker 3: carchiner caverns is superior to other nearby roosts.

646
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 2: There you go. Yeah, that is fascinating though.

647
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:06,279
Speaker 3: So yeah, even though they had a ringtail nightmare, they

648
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 3: still wanted to get back in.

649
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:21,080
Speaker 2: All right. Well, I mentioned that we would eventually consider

650
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:23,359
Speaker 2: other planets in this episode. So I want to come

651
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,879
Speaker 2: back to our explorers again. Our explorers. Our two discoverers

652
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:31,240
Speaker 2: of cartooner caverns were cavers Gary Teenen and Randy Tufts.

653
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 2: And of these two, Randy Tuffs also stands out due

654
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 2: to his contributions to space exploration. So I'm going to

655
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 2: mention a little bit more about his biography, but both

656
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:45,880
Speaker 2: both men are very fascinating individuals that have done a

657
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 2: lot of things. But I'm going to focus in on

658
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:51,760
Speaker 2: Tufts here. He was a University of Arizona geology graduate.

659
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 2: I think seventy two is when he graduated. After that

660
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:57,319
Speaker 2: he worked in public service for a while, but he

661
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 2: was apparently always something of a space husiast. Miller points

662
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 2: out that one of Tuff's defining characteristics, on top of

663
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:09,920
Speaker 2: just being very obsessive, like he would really like this

664
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:11,879
Speaker 2: is a guy that set out to find a cave.

665
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 2: He's like, I want to discover a cave, and he

666
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:17,279
Speaker 2: did not stop until it had happened in a major way.

667
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 2: But also he said that this is a guy that

668
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:23,319
Speaker 2: would often go straight to the top on matters. So

669
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 2: if he liked a book, like he was reading a

670
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 2: novel and he thought it was good, he would be

671
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 2: the sort of person to look up the phone number

672
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:30,880
Speaker 2: of the author so that he could call them and

673
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 2: tell them that he liked the book. This also played

674
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 2: into their conservation efforts, like he was like, well, we

675
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 2: should go and just actually talk to the Governor of

676
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 2: Arizona about the Xanadu situation, and they did it at

677
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:48,319
Speaker 2: one point, and in nineteen seventy seven, when he had

678
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 2: the space bug again in a major way, during a

679
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 2: hitch hiking trip in the eastern United States, he tried

680
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:56,319
Speaker 2: to get an appointment to speak to one of his

681
00:38:56,360 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 2: personal heroes, Carl Sagan, and when he could not get

682
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,319
Speaker 2: such an appointment, he just waited for Carl Sagan in

683
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 2: the parking lot outside of his office and then supposedly

684
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:09,720
Speaker 2: came up to him and said, Hey, how might someone

685
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:12,880
Speaker 2: with a background in geology and community find happiness in

686
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:17,239
Speaker 2: the space program? And Sagan reportedly replied, I haven't the

687
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 2: foggiest which makes sense trying to get home here. I

688
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 2: don't know who this guy is. It's just wandered up.

689
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 2: This hitchhiker's asking me about careers in space. But however

690
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 2: this went down that the two ended up corresponding, so

691
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 2: it wasn't a complete getaway from me a situation or

692
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 2: anything like that, which also speaks to you know, one

693
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 2: of the other things about him is that he was

694
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 2: He alluded to him this question is like he was

695
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 2: involved in a lot of like community issues, so I

696
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 2: think he definitely know he was a researcher for sure,

697
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 2: and could crunch data and look at maps and everything.

698
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 2: But I think he also value that personal connection, like

699
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:57,359
Speaker 2: let me talk to somebody about this. So the two corresponded,

700
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,880
Speaker 2: and then in nineteen ninety, at age forty two, Tufts

701
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:03,320
Speaker 2: went back to the University of Arizona as a grad

702
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:07,479
Speaker 2: student in geosciences with the hope of getting to work

703
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 2: on efforts to study the Jovian Moon of Europa. And

704
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 2: there was the idea. His big hope was that he

705
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 2: could get on with the University of Arizona's Lunar and

706
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:21,360
Speaker 2: Planet Terry Laboratory. But this was his new laser focuss,

707
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:22,879
Speaker 2: like I found a cave if I wanted to find

708
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 2: a cave, found it. Now I really want to study Europa.

709
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 2: He was just obsessed with it, particularly obsessed with the

710
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 2: idea that there might be life on Europa. That's what

711
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 2: I thought, which is something that Sagan of course had

712
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:35,800
Speaker 2: been talking about and writing about.

713
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:37,000
Speaker 4: Yeah.

714
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:40,840
Speaker 2: So in ninety three, according to the book here, he

715
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 2: showed up at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary

716
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 2: Laboratory and said, hey, I want to work on Europa.

717
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 2: Went straight to the top talked to the guy running it,

718
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 2: and at the time no one was really focusing a

719
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 2: lot on Europa. But then two years later the Galileo

720
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 2: probe reached Jupiter and its moons, and things started changing.

721
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 2: We started getting all this data back. So Tuffs came

722
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:03,319
Speaker 2: back to the lab. He ends up joining up with them,

723
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 2: working on his thesis there and helping the team analyze

724
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 2: all of these images coming in from Europa. So now

725
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:16,160
Speaker 2: in his second career, following the Cave, as he always

726
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 2: called it, he would just prefer to Cartner as the Cave,

727
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,480
Speaker 2: Tuffs discovered what he would then just always refer to

728
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:26,239
Speaker 2: as the Fault, an eight hundred and ten kilometer long

729
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 2: fault line on the surface of Europa near its south

730
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:33,880
Speaker 2: pole that came to be known as the And I'm

731
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:35,920
Speaker 2: going to admit I did not look up the pronunciation

732
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:41,879
Speaker 2: for this Asta Palaa Linnaea. This is a name for Astapalaya,

733
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 2: the sister of Europa and Greek mythology. Both are Phoenician princesses. Okay,

734
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:50,600
Speaker 2: so Asta Palaia linea. It's about the size of the

735
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 2: California portion of the San Andreas Fault, and the important

736
00:41:55,920 --> 00:41:58,839
Speaker 2: detail according to Miller is that Tuffs and the team

737
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 2: who was working with here, they a model that indicated

738
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:05,440
Speaker 2: that this fault line in Europe's icy surface could not

739
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 2: have developed unless there was a large body of water

740
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 2: under the surface of Europa. You know, its tides pulled

741
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:15,319
Speaker 2: by a Jovian gravity to force these cracks in the

742
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 2: ice as things went up and went down. And so

743
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 2: the possibility of a liquid ocean beneath the surface of

744
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:24,280
Speaker 2: Europe a really picks up steam at this point due

745
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 2: to these observations in these models.

746
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:31,359
Speaker 3: Okay, Now my understanding is there had already been like

747
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 3: suspicion that there may be a subsurface ocean, but this

748
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 3: was like a big piece of evidence in its.

749
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 2: Favor, right. I think that the idea, the hypothesis that

750
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:42,360
Speaker 2: there might be an ocean under the surface of Europe,

751
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 2: it dates back at least of the nineteen seventies, like

752
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 2: early nineteen seventies, that's I think that's when Sagan was

753
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:50,879
Speaker 2: talking about it and other individuals were considering the possibility.

754
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 2: But this just provided a whole new level of evidence. Yeah,

755
00:42:56,320 --> 00:43:00,440
Speaker 2: so Tough's so yeah, two major discoveries in Tough's life here, Carshner,

756
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 2: Caverns and then this fault line on Europa and all

757
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 2: the additional information we could glean from that. So I

758
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:12,280
Speaker 2: think it's really a compelling story a man who ultimately

759
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,880
Speaker 2: lived a short life and had these two amazing careers

760
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:18,840
Speaker 2: because he hearned his PhD in geosciences at the University

761
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:21,919
Speaker 2: of Arizona at age fifty and then sadly passed three

762
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 2: years after that in two thousand and two due to

763
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:29,800
Speaker 2: a rare blood disease which actually is the same blood

764
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:33,760
Speaker 2: disease that Carl Sagan had died for died from earlier

765
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,359
Speaker 2: at the age of sixty two. So Tufts was taken

766
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 2: too soon. But his accomplishments again very impressive. His obsession,

767
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:44,319
Speaker 2: his curiosity, his scientific commitment, I think all of that

768
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 2: is an inspiration. And for his part, Gary Tinen has

769
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 2: remained an active figure in Arizona conservation and in the

770
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 2: Arizona conservation community, so he's still out there getting things

771
00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:01,319
Speaker 2: done and is involved in various Arizona based efforts. So yeah,

772
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 2: but both of these two I think are really admirable,

773
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:07,680
Speaker 2: So you know, hats off to them. And if nothing else,

774
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:12,359
Speaker 2: I still cannot imagine crawling through the spaces that these

775
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:16,920
Speaker 2: two crawled through to find entry into Cartoner caverns.

776
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 3: I was about to say we have not yet heard

777
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 3: from many cavers in the audience in response to our

778
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 3: first episode, but wait a minute. The first one hasn't

779
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:27,280
Speaker 3: published out when we're recording this, So.

780
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 2: That's right, we're the spoiler for everyone out there or

781
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:32,840
Speaker 2: a little you know, insight into how the sausage is made.

782
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:36,719
Speaker 2: We used to put out episodes with less lead time,

783
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 2: less buffer, less time to put it together. Now we're

784
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 2: like a week out, so used.

785
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:45,160
Speaker 3: To market sometimes sometimes.

786
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:47,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, used to we would put out

787
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:50,800
Speaker 2: part one and then we would do part two while

788
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 2: people were listening to part one, and so you know,

789
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 2: we could get the in between mail and I guess

790
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 2: there's just less possibility of that, but still we do

791
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:02,240
Speaker 2: want to hear from cavers of all varieties, and also

792
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 2: other folks that have visited this in other Arizona caves,

793
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:09,280
Speaker 2: other caves throughout the United States and the world. Because

794
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 2: there's so many amazing cave systems around the world, some

795
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 2: of them have become important educational and recreational destinations.

796
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 3: You if you're a listener to the show, you probably

797
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:23,959
Speaker 3: know the kinds of things we find interesting. So write

798
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:27,560
Speaker 3: us your favorite cave facts or your Robin Joe targeted

799
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 3: cave facts and your own splunking stories please.

800
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, cave movies, all of it's fair game. All right. Well,

801
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 2: we're gonna go ahead and close the book on this topic.

802
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 2: But just a reminder to everyone out there. Stuff to

803
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind is a science and culture podcast primarily,

804
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:46,759
Speaker 2: and we've we've been around for years and years. You

805
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:51,320
Speaker 2: can find our audio archives wherever you get your audio podcasts,

806
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 2: just so many episodes going back throughout the years. However,

807
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 2: you get the podcast rate and review that really helps

808
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:02,360
Speaker 2: us out. And if you're slash listening on Netflix, what

809
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:04,440
Speaker 2: can they do, Joe, they can there's some thumbs up

810
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 2: they can give us.

811
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 3: You can sure we'll get you obviously, positive ratings are appreciated.

812
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:12,319
Speaker 3: But there's a button called remind Me you can hit

813
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 3: on Netflix to get new episodes of our show. I

814
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 3: believe that's the Netflix equivalent of subscribing to the podcast.

815
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 3: Of course, if you are listening to the audio version

816
00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:23,240
Speaker 3: of the show, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts please,

817
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:26,440
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously only if you want to. Don't feel pressure,

818
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 3: but it is very for us. It's great to you

819
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:33,879
Speaker 3: do it feel the pressure, thanks as always to our

820
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:37,719
Speaker 3: excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to

821
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 3: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

822
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 3: or any other, to suggest topic for the future, to

823
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 3: send us cavefacts, to send us your own Cave anecdotes,

824
00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:47,759
Speaker 3: or just to let us know how you found out

825
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 3: about the show, what you like about it. Contact at

826
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

827
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:03,319
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828
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

829
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