Post by L Roebuck on Oct 16, 2006 9:02:05 GMT -5
Arizona's Kartchner Caverns is oddity of geologic action
By Eric Noland, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
BENSON, Ariz.
WHITE CONES, resembling styrofoam, suspend from the ceiling. Knobby posts appear to have been artfully sculpted with hammer and chisel. A bumpy protrusion is engulfed in shiny goop, as if toffee had been poured over it from a great vat.
"Otherworldly" doesn't begin to describe the subterranean wonderland that is Kartchner Caverns, in the Arizona desert southeast of Tucson. Its geologic features are the kind of thing that more commonly spring from the imagination of set designers on futuristic movies.
That might account for the "oohs" that routinely emanate from people who take guided tours of these dark bowels of the Whetstone Mountains. It might also explain tour-goers' powerful urge — strictly forbidden — to run a hand over some of these bizarre shapes and surfaces.
It was Kartchner Caverns' good fortune to be discovered by two young men with scientific backgrounds. That tempered their wonder with respect for the painstaking processes that formed the cave's oddities over 200,000 years. Just as easily, it could have been stumbled upon by hooligans desirous of bagging a goofy stalagmite for the mantelpiece, or of leaving behind a girlfriend's name etched into centuries-old flowstone ooze.
In a remarkable display of discretion, amateur spelunkers Randy Tufts and Gary Tenen kept their find a secret for years, until they gained assurances that the caverns would be preserved, managed and carefully monitored. They first shimmied into the cave in 1974, then didn't inform the property owners about their find until 1978, didn't bring the state government in on it until 1984 and didn't witness the first public visits to Kartchner Caverns State Park until 1999. (Tufts died in 2002.)
"Sometimes you have to open it to the public to preserve it," said Bob Casavant, research and science manager for Arizona State Parks.
The park management of the caves — and the revenue from more than 1 million visitors who've toured them over the past seven years — has ensured that souvenir hunters and graffiti vandals are sealed out, and that visitation is closely controlled.The stewardship also has included an ongoing scientific study of the caverns' origins and ecology.
Two tours, each 11/2 hours in length and involving about a half-mile of walking, are offered. The Rotunda/Throne Room tour is conducted year-round, while the Big Room is toured only from October through mid-April — because a community of bats uses it as a maternity nursery in the summer, and park officials don't want to disturb them by trooping tourists through.
In advance of the tours, a comprehensive orientation to what lies beneath can be gained in the Discovery Center. After perusing the exhibits, you might conclude that spelunkers are in a constant state of famishment during their explorations.
Among the names given to various cave formations: popcorn coralloids, fried egg stalagmites, turnip shields, carrots, bacon drapery, butterscotch drapery, moon milk, soda straws.
Also told here is the remarkable story of Tufts and Tenen. In the early 1970s, they were students at the University of Arizona in geology and entomology, respectively, and came upon the caverns after Tufts, tramping among these desert hills, discovered a small opening in a sinkhole.
Cave hunting is clearly not for everyone. Tales are told of the two wriggling through a blowhole no bigger than the interior of a coat hanger, and squirming on their bellies along tunnels barely 10 inches high, their nostrils assaulted by the overpowering scent of bat guano.
The visitor's experience is much less arduous today. After Kartchner became a state park in 1988, mining crews carefully cut tunnels into the caverns, and designed them so that stair steps would not be needed; the tour pathways, as a result, are fully wheelchair-accessible.
Because it took humans so long to discover these caves, management of them benefits considerably from hindsight. Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico suffered after an elevator was installed in 1931; it proved to be a vent for warm, desert air that began to dry out the cave's natural features.
Kartchner's interior is protected by two air-lockdoors in the entry tunnel — "like a meat locker," Casavant said as we entered with an afternoon tour.
Because visitors bring in unwanted invaders — microbes in the lint of their clothing, skin that is constantly scaling — the tour group is fogged by a misting device at the beginning of the visit, and at the end of each day the walkways are washed down.
Full Article
By Eric Noland, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
BENSON, Ariz.
WHITE CONES, resembling styrofoam, suspend from the ceiling. Knobby posts appear to have been artfully sculpted with hammer and chisel. A bumpy protrusion is engulfed in shiny goop, as if toffee had been poured over it from a great vat.
"Otherworldly" doesn't begin to describe the subterranean wonderland that is Kartchner Caverns, in the Arizona desert southeast of Tucson. Its geologic features are the kind of thing that more commonly spring from the imagination of set designers on futuristic movies.
That might account for the "oohs" that routinely emanate from people who take guided tours of these dark bowels of the Whetstone Mountains. It might also explain tour-goers' powerful urge — strictly forbidden — to run a hand over some of these bizarre shapes and surfaces.
It was Kartchner Caverns' good fortune to be discovered by two young men with scientific backgrounds. That tempered their wonder with respect for the painstaking processes that formed the cave's oddities over 200,000 years. Just as easily, it could have been stumbled upon by hooligans desirous of bagging a goofy stalagmite for the mantelpiece, or of leaving behind a girlfriend's name etched into centuries-old flowstone ooze.
In a remarkable display of discretion, amateur spelunkers Randy Tufts and Gary Tenen kept their find a secret for years, until they gained assurances that the caverns would be preserved, managed and carefully monitored. They first shimmied into the cave in 1974, then didn't inform the property owners about their find until 1978, didn't bring the state government in on it until 1984 and didn't witness the first public visits to Kartchner Caverns State Park until 1999. (Tufts died in 2002.)
"Sometimes you have to open it to the public to preserve it," said Bob Casavant, research and science manager for Arizona State Parks.
The park management of the caves — and the revenue from more than 1 million visitors who've toured them over the past seven years — has ensured that souvenir hunters and graffiti vandals are sealed out, and that visitation is closely controlled.The stewardship also has included an ongoing scientific study of the caverns' origins and ecology.
Two tours, each 11/2 hours in length and involving about a half-mile of walking, are offered. The Rotunda/Throne Room tour is conducted year-round, while the Big Room is toured only from October through mid-April — because a community of bats uses it as a maternity nursery in the summer, and park officials don't want to disturb them by trooping tourists through.
In advance of the tours, a comprehensive orientation to what lies beneath can be gained in the Discovery Center. After perusing the exhibits, you might conclude that spelunkers are in a constant state of famishment during their explorations.
Among the names given to various cave formations: popcorn coralloids, fried egg stalagmites, turnip shields, carrots, bacon drapery, butterscotch drapery, moon milk, soda straws.
Also told here is the remarkable story of Tufts and Tenen. In the early 1970s, they were students at the University of Arizona in geology and entomology, respectively, and came upon the caverns after Tufts, tramping among these desert hills, discovered a small opening in a sinkhole.
Cave hunting is clearly not for everyone. Tales are told of the two wriggling through a blowhole no bigger than the interior of a coat hanger, and squirming on their bellies along tunnels barely 10 inches high, their nostrils assaulted by the overpowering scent of bat guano.
The visitor's experience is much less arduous today. After Kartchner became a state park in 1988, mining crews carefully cut tunnels into the caverns, and designed them so that stair steps would not be needed; the tour pathways, as a result, are fully wheelchair-accessible.
Because it took humans so long to discover these caves, management of them benefits considerably from hindsight. Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico suffered after an elevator was installed in 1931; it proved to be a vent for warm, desert air that began to dry out the cave's natural features.
Kartchner's interior is protected by two air-lockdoors in the entry tunnel — "like a meat locker," Casavant said as we entered with an afternoon tour.
Because visitors bring in unwanted invaders — microbes in the lint of their clothing, skin that is constantly scaling — the tour group is fogged by a misting device at the beginning of the visit, and at the end of each day the walkways are washed down.
Full Article