Post by Craig on Jun 6, 2003 16:02:25 GMT -5
"The cave probably started forming about 500,000 years ago," says Rick Toomey, cave resource manager for the state of Arizona.
And drop by drop, it is still forming, resulting in the most pristine cave system in the world, a living laboratory for scientists.
And its caretakers have taken great care to keep it that way, spending millions of dollars to protect its fragile and rare formations. The technology includes sensors throughout the cave that measure temperature and humidity minute by minute.
"We're sort of setting the new standard for how a cave is developed," says Toomey.
Tour groups are limited to 30 people at a time, and visitors get their marching orders before they ever set foot inside. "We ask you not to touch anything," says the tour director again and again, explaining that any contact will contaminate the formations.
Visitors enter through enormous steel doors and an air lock to prevent the cave from drying out. Misting devices spray down from overhead so loose hair and fibers won't fall into the cave. Lighting is dim so algae won't grow.
For visitors, the precautions are worth it. They see crystal-clear pools, "soda-straw" stalactites, towering columns, and even the footprints left in the mud by the two men who first came here.
Plan to Protect Caves Crucial
"With the discovery," says caver Gary Tenen, "came responsibility to take care of this." He and his friend Randy Tufts discovered the caverns in 1974 and knew that they had to come up with a plan to protect them from careless sightseers. "People would break formations and spray-paint things on the walls," says Tenen, "they would take formations out and take trash in."
Not that it was easy to get in before the cave was developed. Tenen and Tufts entered through a narrow sinkhole in the ground. They were not optimistic, since they had explored many sinkholes before that were dead ends. They crawled more than a hundred feet, often on their bellies, through the dark. Just as they were ready to give up, their small lights revealed something wondrous, an enormous room full of nature's art work.
"We were just speechless," says Tenen, "and just reduced to giggling."
Secret Discoveries
Despite their excitement, the two men kept the cave a secret for 14 years while they drew up plans for protecting the caverns.
"We knew we had to bring in people like surveyors, cave experts, so we had our attorney draw up a secrecy agreement," says Tenen.
The owners of the land, the Kartchner family, were the first to sign, agreeing that the rare cavern had to be carefully preserved and protected. Even the young explorers' girlfriends had to sign the agreement before they were let in on the secret.
The silence paid off. Fourteen years after their discovery, the Arizona State Parks Department began a 12-year, $32 million project to build a museum and to develop the cave in such a way that its treasures would be protected.
Kartchner Caverns is now a state park with state-of-the-art protections that is guaranteed to keep right on growing. One steady drop at a time.
And drop by drop, it is still forming, resulting in the most pristine cave system in the world, a living laboratory for scientists.
And its caretakers have taken great care to keep it that way, spending millions of dollars to protect its fragile and rare formations. The technology includes sensors throughout the cave that measure temperature and humidity minute by minute.
"We're sort of setting the new standard for how a cave is developed," says Toomey.
Tour groups are limited to 30 people at a time, and visitors get their marching orders before they ever set foot inside. "We ask you not to touch anything," says the tour director again and again, explaining that any contact will contaminate the formations.
Visitors enter through enormous steel doors and an air lock to prevent the cave from drying out. Misting devices spray down from overhead so loose hair and fibers won't fall into the cave. Lighting is dim so algae won't grow.
For visitors, the precautions are worth it. They see crystal-clear pools, "soda-straw" stalactites, towering columns, and even the footprints left in the mud by the two men who first came here.
Plan to Protect Caves Crucial
"With the discovery," says caver Gary Tenen, "came responsibility to take care of this." He and his friend Randy Tufts discovered the caverns in 1974 and knew that they had to come up with a plan to protect them from careless sightseers. "People would break formations and spray-paint things on the walls," says Tenen, "they would take formations out and take trash in."
Not that it was easy to get in before the cave was developed. Tenen and Tufts entered through a narrow sinkhole in the ground. They were not optimistic, since they had explored many sinkholes before that were dead ends. They crawled more than a hundred feet, often on their bellies, through the dark. Just as they were ready to give up, their small lights revealed something wondrous, an enormous room full of nature's art work.
"We were just speechless," says Tenen, "and just reduced to giggling."
Secret Discoveries
Despite their excitement, the two men kept the cave a secret for 14 years while they drew up plans for protecting the caverns.
"We knew we had to bring in people like surveyors, cave experts, so we had our attorney draw up a secrecy agreement," says Tenen.
The owners of the land, the Kartchner family, were the first to sign, agreeing that the rare cavern had to be carefully preserved and protected. Even the young explorers' girlfriends had to sign the agreement before they were let in on the secret.
The silence paid off. Fourteen years after their discovery, the Arizona State Parks Department began a 12-year, $32 million project to build a museum and to develop the cave in such a way that its treasures would be protected.
Kartchner Caverns is now a state park with state-of-the-art protections that is guaranteed to keep right on growing. One steady drop at a time.