WEBVTT - Kartchner Caverns, Part 2 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:14.440 Hey wasn't this stuff to blow your mind? 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.360 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.279 today we're back with part two of our series about 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:24.040 a cave system in the US state of Arizona known 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:28.000 as Carchner Caverns. Rob, you wanted to talk about this 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.280 cave because you just visited in person with your family, 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:34.480 though though you'd been there once before, at least once 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:36.080 be four years ago, right, that's. 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.360 Right, like fourteen years ago. My wife and I visited 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.080 the area and went to Cartner Caverns and two or 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.160 two of the rooms, and then in the past couple 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.000 of months we went back with our kiddo and we 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.040 all experienced the big room, which we'll come back to 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:52.720 here in a bit. 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.240 So in the last episode we talked a lot about 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.600 the discovery and development history of the caverns, which involve 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:04.640 a lot more secrecy things like code names and you know, 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.640 secret messages than you might expect for the discovery of 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:11.360 a cave. Also some harrowing tales of people squeezing their 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.119 full adult bodies through little melon sized holes in rock. 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:18.720 And we also talked about a lot of the concerns 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.960 that go into responsible development of caves that are going 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.600 to be open to public tours, and how easily cave 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.800 ecosystems can get thrown out of whack by everything from 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:32.080 you know what's on the bottom of your boots to 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:36.240 cheeto dust, to lint to whatever. And we're back today 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.000 to talk about more, and. 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.039 I want to mention once more that in addition to 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.559 visiting the caves and going on on a guided tour 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:45.800 and going through the museum and so forth, one of 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.720 my key sources here is the book Cartoner Caverns, How 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:51.760 Two Cavers Discovered and Saved one of the Wonders of 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.880 the natural World, by Neil Miller holding up here for 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.560 the For any of y'all out there that are using video, 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:01.120 this is a great book, especially if you want a 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:03.800 much deeper dive, but a very accessible dive into all 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.720 the trials and tribulations the long journey of conservation for 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:09.720 Cartoner Caverns. 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.240 Get all the squeezing through holes and walking past rattlesnake 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:14.040 stories and all that. 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.639 Yeah, yeah, who got stuck? Some people got stuck going 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:19.160 through the blowhole early on, you know, because they had 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.800 to bring in outsiders, you know, to check it out, 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.560 and not everybody was as good at squeezing through that 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:26.400 little hole. 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.800 So to kick things off for today, Rob, you mentioned 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:33.320 the last time that Carchner Caverns is sometimes referred to 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.400 as a living cave, and what that means is that 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.959 the cave is still hydrologically active, so water is still 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:44.840 flowing through the rock, and so the shape of the 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:48.800 cave is still actively changing year by year little by little, 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:53.000 and the mineral formations within the cave are still growing. 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:59.160 Sometimes limestone caves can become essentially fixed in place. Even 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.840 that's an approximate because you know, there are always things 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.200 that can change the shape of a cave, you know, 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.480 other kinds of erosion or of course any you know, 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:11.000 collapses or things like that. So you know, no cave 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.400 is really fixed on geological time. But some caves can 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.320 become more fixed, at least from a water flow standpoint, 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.840 if the flow of water that originally shaped them is 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:26.040 diverted or otherwise cut off. So these caves are sometimes 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.200 thought of as dead or dormant in form or maybe 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:33.200 reliced caves. But Kartchner is not one of those examples. 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:34.880 It is still alive and growing. 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:40.320 Yeah, very hypercentile of the formations are still alive. And 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:41.720 that is one thing to keep in mind is that 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.680 even within a very wet, very living cave, you'll still 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:47.840 you know, water is still has to flow down in 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.840 just the right places for these formations to continue to grow. 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.520 And sometimes particular formations get cut off they're no longer growing. 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:58.920 Sometimes they fall over or break, you know, under their 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.480 own weight or because of human or animal movement or 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.280 even seismic activity that sort of thing. But then they 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.440 can also be sort of reactivated if the water situation 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:11.720 changes even slightly. 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.000 Yeah, So, I know we wanted to talk about some 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:19.000 of these specific types of formations or speliothems you see 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.479 inside Carchner, but I guess before that we should back 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:25.520 up a step and do a review on the basic 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.760 process that forms a limestone cave. Usually goes like this. 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.600 You've got rain water falls to the ground and it 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.560 seeps through the soil. Where As it passes through the soil, 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:41.839 it absorbs carbon dioxide, thus becoming weakly acidic. So the 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:46.520 water now contains carbonic acid, and this acidic water seeps 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:50.440 down into the ground until it reaches or flows into 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.960 the porous limestone layer, and then as the acidic water 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:59.400 passes through the limestone, it dissolves little bits of the 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.240 mineral content of the rock. So in this case, the 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:05.919 rock would be calcite or calcium carbonate, and it carries 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:10.479 away that dissolved mineral. Actually it's ionic constituents, so it 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:16.160 turns into calcium ions and bicarbonate ions. It dissolves those 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.520 into the acidic water and it carries them along in 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:24.680 the liquid. However, when the acidic water emerges from the 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.520 rock into the air filled void of the cave, which 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:33.440 usually has a lower CO two concentration, it off gases. 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.919 It's kind of like opening a can of Seltzer carbonated beverage. 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.839 The dissolved carbon dioxide is released from the water becomes 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.680 a gas in the air. And once this happens, now 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:48.200 the acidity of the water has been lowered and the 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:52.680 water loses its ability to retain the constituents of calcite 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:57.000 in solution. So the dissolved calcium and bicarbonate ions come 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.000 out of solution and then they form the mineral calcite 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:04.800 once again. So now as this water runs along surfaces 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.240 and drips from ceiling to floor in these air filled 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:13.000 voids in a cave. It creates deposits of calcium carbonate 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.240 that can no longer be held in solution, and these 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:21.000 drip points become things like stalactites and stalagmites and other 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:23.200 weirder things that we'll get to in just a second, 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:28.400 that they form as the calcite gradually accumulates and crystallizes 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:28.960 over time. 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:29.520 Yeah. 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:33.040 Yeah, there's so many different formations, and the crazy thing 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:35.919 is we haven't even completely figured out how all of 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:37.159 them form. 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:38.960 Oh yeah, but in. 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.640 General, yeah, they form according to the movements of water, 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.480 which can can certainly take on that simple top down 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:47.720 stalactite stalagmite model that we're all used to, I think, 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.840 but you can also get all sorts of other formations 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:55.160 that are typically named after foods, informally by hungry cavers. 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.120 You see this time and time again, because what we 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.080 were talking about in the first episode, you don't want 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:02.480 to have a big meal before you go in. You 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:04.480 can bring some snacks, but you got to carry out 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.760 everything you bring in, so you know, generally cavers are hungry. 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.360 Two of my favorites in this category are cave bacon 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:12.520 and fried eggs. 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:14.120 Let's hear about them. 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.320 Yeah, okay, so fried eggs, and I encourage everyone to 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:21.960 look up images of these if they're not forthcoming or 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:24.200 you don't know what I'm talking about. But fried eggs 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:29.240 or calcite deposits that develop in existing stalagmites from overhead drips, 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.640 sometimes taking on a distinct egg yolk appearance in the middle. 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:38.240 These can look very Sometimes they don't look exactly like 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.520 a fried egg, but they look they look gnarly. I'll 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:41.280 go ahead and say that. 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.000 Well, can I say the picture you have in the 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.320 document here for us to look at is my kind 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:48.880 of fried egg. You know, there are different ways to 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.240 make a fried egg. Some like a very gently fried 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.080 egg where the white part is going to end up 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.800 being very flat and untextured whites, and then a very 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.920 you know, sort of a gently gently warmed yolk area. 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.080 I like a kind of hard fried egg where the 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.640 white gets very frothy and bubbly and browned on the underside. 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:10.680 And that's what it looks like here. It looks like, 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:12.320 you know, you've got a kind of yolk in the middle, 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:14.680 and then the white all around it looks very bubbly. 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:15.560 It's textured. 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.240 Yeah. Yeah, Now, my favorite of these, so it's certainly 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.880 my favorite of the formations that observed on my recent 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:26.000 tour is the cave bacon. Cave bacon is a thin, 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:30.120 wavy flowstone drapery and this is formed by calcite rich 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:34.040 water trickling down sloped cave ceilings. The way it was 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:36.280 explained to me on the tour is, think about when 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.840 you're taking a shower and you reach up to adjust 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:43.120 the shower head and water veins down your arm. Imagine 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.280 that except calcite rich water that forms this thin rock 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.760 formation over time kind of like hanging down like a 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:52.760 kind of you know, like a shroud or something. So 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:57.120 they're beautifully translucent. Really when when lit from behind, so 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.360 you know, you get somebody with a light lamp they 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:02.840 can catch from behind and the light will will actually 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.520 go through the cave bacon and it has this marbled 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.280 appearance that just you know, unmistakably looks like bacon. 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.840 Streaky bacon for our UK based listeners. 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:13.920 Knows that what they call it in the UK streaky bacon. 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:15.320 Well, you know you've got the different haus. You've got 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:17.360 streaky bacon, which is made from the pork belly, so 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.600 you get this striated, streaky appearance. And then I think 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:22.720 in the UK a lot of bacon is back bacon, 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.720 which has made more from the loin. I think I 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:27.280 could be wrong about that, but it's got like a 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.120 bigger eye of meat in it and has less of 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:34.280 that just strata geological layers kind of appearance that American 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:34.800 bacon does. 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.200 Yeah, so this stuff's really picturesque. Also, of note, so 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:43.480 to straw formations, which are also mildly the food based 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:47.800 in their naming. Yeah, these are incredible, really delicate, thin 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:52.760 hollow tubes that hang down quite fragile, so fragile that 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.960 even young bats learning to fly and echo locate can 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.320 bump into them and knock them down. So it's easy 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.400 to imagine if baby bats are able to damage these, 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:07.439 human cavers can very easily break them, and sometimes they 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:08.680 just break off under their own weight. 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.640 Anyway, So I was looking up the formation of soda 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.280 straws because I got very interested in these. Again. Yeah, 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.319 you're exactly right there. They're very thin, very delicate. I mean, 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:21.000 straw is the perfect comparison. They're hollow tubes and they're 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:22.720 about as thin as straws. I mean I guess they 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.000 can take slightly different thicknesses, but a lot of them 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.000 really do just look like long straws. And it turns 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:32.560 out the soda straw is the early stage of formation 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:38.320 of a stalactite, So most stalactites were once soda straws 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:42.080 when they were little baby stalactites. My understanding of the 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.600 process is that so they're drip formations of course, you know, 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.520 it's water places where water drips from the ceiling above, 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.840 and they begin as hollow tubes because the water drips 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:57.160 kind of slowly from the ceiling, and each droplet comes 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.880 into contact with the air and loses CO two, mainly 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:05.080 at its outer edges. So the calcite the precipitates out 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.120 of each drop tends to be left behind in a 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.040 ring shape from where the you know, the droplet emerges. 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.640 And then over time the straw will get filled in 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:19.040 by mineral content. And once this inner straw tube is 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.400 finally fully blocked and water can no longer drip down 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:25.720 the straw through the middle, it will instead have to 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.160 run along the outside, and this is what causes a 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.560 stalactite to take on the more familiar conical shape, you know, 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:35.880 shaped more like a turnip or a carrot like or 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:38.280 not a turnip, more like a parsnip er a carrot. 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.120 You know, the cone because the water is now going 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.240 to be running along the outside, but in the early stages, 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:46.280 when it still has this hollow tube in the middle, 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.720 it remains this thin, delicate, long straw shape. 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:52.600 Yeah, yeah, so you know, these are some of the 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:57.440 little guys. But of course, especially the large chambers in 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:01.840 cartooner caverns, these are just amazing. They're just like you know, 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.720 we often compare them to cathedrals because that's the scale 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.240 of these formations that have just been formed over vast 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:12.160 periods of time. And you know via this active water flow. 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:16.120 Now, Rob, which room is it where they've got the 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:19.120 formation known as Kubla Khan, the really big column with 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.200 all of the it looks like a I don't know, 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:23.840 a Godzilla sized candle that's been melting. 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:26.880 I believe this one is in the throne room. So 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.920 this would have been one that I saw fourteen years ago. 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.000 Okay, no Kubla Khan for you this year. 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.240 No, no, but that really, especially for folks that are 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.120 thinking of going, like either tour is going to amaze you. 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:41.120 You're not gonna you're not going to be hurting. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:51.720 For amazing formations. 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:57.320 So one very interesting, lesser known type of formation that 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:00.959 you find in Kartchner is one I wanted to talk 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:02.520 about called heliictite. 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.280 Did you see any of this in the cave, Rob, Yes, 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:07.640 some of this was pointed out to us, and yeah, 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:08.680 this was really amazing. 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.080 So yeah, I've got a picture in the outline we 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.560 can refer to here. This is one that the park 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.280 uploaded to their Facebook page this year. It didn't say 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:18.559 what room it's in, so I can't say exactly where 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:22.280 in the cave it comes from. But helictites are again, 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:26.319 they're calcite based deposits. They're formed from the same basic 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:31.439 chemistry as normal stalactites and stalagmites, but by a different 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:36.240 mechanism of deposition. So they're formed less by dripping and 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:40.960 more by capillary reaction and seeping. So they do not 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:45.520 look like regular stalactites and stalagmites. In fact, to me, 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.600 they do not look like geology at all. They look 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:53.559 like biology. For one thing, they don't have the helictites 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.000 do not have the straight vertical up and down orientation 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:01.040 that you see with stalactites and stalagmites in the picture 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.240 we've gotten the outline here. What they look like to 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.479 me are tree roots. It looks like a big, twisting, 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:12.280 curling root ball with these tendrils spiraling out into the 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:14.800 air from a thicker central column. 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.880 Yeah, there's a It really does feel like there's some 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.560 sort of a reaching, a seeking involved here that's more 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:24.560 biological than geological, like you said. 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.240 Yeah, yeah, like a growth pattern looking for water or something. 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.560 So I was reading about the process that forms helictites 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.520 on the website of the National Spileeological Society, which you 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.160 can find at caves dot org. And according to their 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:43.520 fact page written by somebody named Dave Bunnel, the term 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:48.800 helictite is used to refer to quote contorted depositional spiliothems 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:53.600 which grow in any direction defying gravity. And they're also 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:58.920 sometimes called non gravitomorphic, so not primarily shaped by gravity. 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:03.840 These are the the anti gravity formations. It seems that 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:07.280 these start the same way, or basically the same way 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.640 as the other formations we've been talking about. So you've 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.920 got the water with dissolved calcite constituents seeping through the 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:18.520 porous rock, and at some point it reaches the air 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.000 filled cavity of the cave where some of the CO 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.520 two escapes the water and the calcite comes out of 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:29.000 solution and mineralizes. But the difference is that helictites are 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.560 formed in areas where the flow of the water through 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:36.640 the rock is very slow. It's slow enough that it's 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.480 not actually coming out in big masses and having to 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:43.680 drip away. So instead of these big droplets that gather 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.640 at the end of a soda straw or a stalactite 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.560 and then fall off every few seconds, at the tip 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:53.120 of it helictite, you've only got a tiny film of 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.440 water seeping through and being exposed to the air, and 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.320 there's so little water that the surface tension causes it 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.120 to stick to the end of the formation rather than 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:07.760 falling off. And then Bunnele writes, quote growth continues through 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:11.640 a tiny central capillary channel. So Roub, when you see 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:15.360 these little spikes and roots coming off, imagine that in 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.680 the middle of them there's an extremely tiny, little little tube, 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.680 you know, not a soda straw size tube, but a tiny, tiny, 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:26.280 microscopic little tube, a capillary. And then Bunnele continues, quote, 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:30.840 which the solution flows through via hydrostatic and capillary pressure 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.920 to emerge and deposit calcite at the tip. In higher 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.040 flow conditions, it can come out. It can come out 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.720 the tip and travel back along the length of the 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:45.280 helic tite, making it thicker. Okay, so that's that's how 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:49.080 you get these these formations. But how do you end 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:53.000 up with the twisted gravity defying shapes? Like what what's 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:58.560 determining the emergence of these shapes? And Bunnel identifies several 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:02.000 different causes or possible causes. You mentioned earlier that actually 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.880 the science of how exactly some cave formations are made 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.919 is not entirely settled. There are some open questions, and 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.600 I think it seems in the case of helictite there 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:14.160 are still some open questions. 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.040 Yeah, yeah, that's the one I was referring to for sure. Yeah, 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.720 where we have some great ideas, but you know, it's 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:21.080 hard to observe these in real time. 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:26.159 Yeah. So Bunnle identifies several possible causes. One thing is 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.800 mineral impurities in the calcite might determine, you know, weird 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:34.840 patterns of growth. Another is quote wedge shaped crystals causing 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:40.560 uneven deposition. So if you've got crystals that don't grow symmetrically, 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:42.359 you know, they're kind of growing in a wedge shape. 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.800 They're going to cause a directional curling as the crystal 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:51.960 extends itself. And then also apparently during dry periods, sometimes 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:56.840 the central capillary in the formation gets stopped up, so 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:00.800 when water resumes flowing through this little spike of rock, 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:03.760 it goes not through the middle, but is forced out 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:05.920 through a new channel in the side. And if you 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:08.760 repeat this over and over, I guess you get gravity 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:13.240 defying shapes. And then finally, one thought is air currents. 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:15.960 So if there is airflow in the cave, you know, 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:20.359 gentle wind in the cave, it could influence a gravity 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:24.720 defying direction of growth of a formation like this, maybe 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:29.640 because you get asymmetrical evaporation. So if there's faster evaporation 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.560 on one side of the spike then the other, it 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.120 could end up causing the spike to essentially grow over 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:40.399 time in one direction. And the author notes that sometimes 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.960 you see helick tites facing all the same direction down 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.239 a cave passage, kind of like I was imagining, like 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.080 those spikes that sort of go backwards in the maw 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:51.080 of a sea turtle. 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:56.400 Yeah, that's a good comparison. Yeah, Yeah, definitely looks gnarly 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.600 and adds to this feel of a living cave, of 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.200 a live cave, because it looks a lot like again, 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.439 like biological growths to the untrained eye. 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:08.680 But this is definitely one where I would urge people 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.399 to go look up a bunch of different pictures of helictites, 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:14.480 because they don't all look the same. You get a 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.520 lot of different kinds of helictites and different Some of 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:20.399 them have this melted wax appearance we were talking about, 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.199 you know, melting candles earlier. Some look like melted wax, 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:27.400 some look like worms. You've ever seen that. I remember 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.040 there is a picture I've looked at many times that 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:34.480 I think is hosted somewhere in a Japanese parasite museum 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.280 that is like a marine mammal stomach that is erupting 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:42.159 with parasitic worms, and they preserved this and formaldehyde, I believe. 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:45.120 So I'm just thinking of that because I'm currently looking 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:46.920 at a picture we have in our outline of a 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.080 cave in Australia that has a bunch of white calcite 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.000 helic tites growing out of a cave wall. Looks exactly 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:54.800 like that stomach erupting with worms. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.399 It does look like some sort of strange Eldric horror, 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:03.600 doesn't it. All Right, well, let's uh, let's move on 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:07.720 to an actual form of life, of biological life that 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:10.600 is found in the caves. Let's talk a bit about bats. 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:12.359 And but before we do, I want to come back 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:14.600 to something you asked me about in the last episode. 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:15.120 Uh. 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:18.200 You asked me if the bats at Cartoner Cavern came 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:22.120 and went via the same sinkhole and tiny blowhole as 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:26.199 the human explorers. Yeah, I said yes, and that is correct. 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:28.880 But I want to share another great bit from Miller's 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.399 book that discusses this. So Miller points out that the 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.919 bats would frequently come in and out of that blowhole 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:39.800 on summer evenings to forage for insects. Toughsentinan, the two 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:44.440 explorers and discoverers of Cartoon Caverns would sometimes sit at 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:46.520 the top of the sinkhole around this time and they 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:50.680 would just watch the bats. Uh. Yeah, that sounds sounds cool, 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:54.120 sounds very relaxing. But then there's this I'm gonna read 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:58.120 from the book here. Quote Tough Santenan's roommate Brad Barber 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:02.400 describes leaving through the blow Whole crawlway just before sunset 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.800 on his first visit to Xanadu and feeling something brush 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:09.480 against his face. When there was finally enough space above 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:11.439 his head so he could turn and look back, he 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:14.320 saw a line of bats coming through the crawlway at 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:18.800 surprising speed. By the time he reached the sinkhole quote, 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.880 they were pouring out like a washing machine. He recalled. 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:24.719 A couple other things I want to mention just real 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:27.840 quick before you get into the gritty details about this 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:32.440 particular bat species. It is a threatened species and they're 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.800 roosting in the cave. Served as a biological imperative for 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:40.520 the Arizona Nature Conservancy Board to act regarding Kartchner caverns, 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.080 So it does play. Their presence there plays an important 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:48.520 role in the conservation efforts. But also we've been talking 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:52.440 about bats being like the only mammal to access the caves, 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:54.920 and for the most part that is true, you know, 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.960 up until humans too. Humans in particular found their way down, 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:03.040 but they aren't the only mammals to ever access the caves. 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:07.159 So bones of a thirty four thousand year old horse 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:11.240 and an eighty thousand year old Shasta ground sloth have 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:14.919 been discovered in Cartenter caverns, clearly dating back to a 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:18.720 time when there was some other access point besides the blowhole, 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:21.680 and also to a time when the surface vegetation an 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.280 environment was somewhat different. The sloth would have accessed the 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:30.800 cave during the Pleistocene epoch, so a long time ago, 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.719 and I think it's unknown exactly like what its story is, 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:37.520 how it ended up to come into these caves and die. 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:41.679 I think when Tussan Tinan first discovered the bones, they 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:43.120 thought it was a bison, and so for a while 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:44.960