Carlsbad Caverns National Park is an American national park in the Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico.
There’s not much to see on the outside, just the plain Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico.After a very impressive natural entrance descends 250 m into the abyss.But once the winding path has led you beneath the entrance, a wonderland opens up.It includes a large cave chamber, the Big Room, a natural limestone chamber which is almost 1,220 m long, 191 m wide, and 78 m high at the highest point. It is the third-largest chamber in North America and the seventh-largest in the world.There are more than 119 known caves within the park alone-they are some of the biggest and longest caves in the world. All of them reveal a very unusual ingredient in cave dissolution (creation)—sulfuric acid.Compared to other limestone caves all over the world, this one is not damp with water droplets hanging everywhere. It’s in a desert with arid conditions, only ground water can be part of the game.Evidence shows that when hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from oil deposits in the area and a whole range of newly discovered microbes combine with oxygen in the underground water table, sulfuric acid is the result. This very aggressive dissolution of passageways occurred at the level of the water table along cracks, fractures and faults in the limestone.As the Guadalupe Mountains uplifted little by little, the level of the water table dropped in relation to the land surface; therefore, the highly aggressive “acid bath” drained away leaving a newly dissolved cave behind.One of the many by-products of this sulfuric acid dissolution of limestone is a mineral called gypsum. Huge gypsum blocks still line the floor of the Big Room of Carlsbad Cavern.This method of sulfuric acid dissolution created seemingly endless mazes of both narrow and huge passageways that look to many visitors like Swiss cheese.Because these caves were dissolved deep underground, not all caves here have an opening to the world above.During summer there are bat flight shows that can be watched in a special constructed amphitheater.A scaled model shows just how big the cave is (we walked down and took the elevator back up, still took us almost 3 hours).Spiky desert green, the ideal in-post topic seperator!Outside the park, a restaurant and housing complex in earthy NM style, the bucket is said to be the one where the first tourists were carried up and down to the cave (not sure I believe that lol).Yehaa!Restaurant with a bull.Little C. on a rustic nailed leather chair.
