Dripstone (Olive's Bower, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, USA) 6

            Western Kentucky's Mammoth Cave is the longest cave system on Earth, with 426 miles known and mapped as of March 2024.  The name does not refer to the early discovery of fossil mastodon or mammoth bones here.  Rather, the name refers to the immense size of many rooms and passages.

Speleothem (= "cave formations") refers to all secondary mineral deposits in caves.  Most speleothem is composed of calcium carbonate (CaCO3 - usually in the form of calcite, but sometimes aragonite).  Calcareous speleothem is referred to using the rock name "travertine", a crystalline-textured, chemical sedimentary rock formed by precipitation from water.

Dripstone and flowstone are the most common forms of travertine speleothem.  Dripstone forms by calcium carbonate precipitation from dripping water.  Flowstone forms by calcium carbonate precipitation from thin sheets of flowing water.  The most common forms of dripstone are stalactites (attached to ceilings), stalagmites (growing from the floor), columns (= fused stalactite-stalagmite pairs), and draperies (= curtain-like sheets formed as drops of water descend along an inclined surface).  Flowstone often has the appearance of frozen waterfalls.

Seen here are travertine stalactites at Olive's Bower, a wet area with actively-growing speleothem.  In places, there are closely associated roots from surface vegetation.  Olive's Bower is at the terminus of Audubon Avenue, a giant canyon passage that heads ~west from the Rotunda (= the first large room in Mammoth Cave when entered via the Historic Entrance).  Between Rafinesque Hall and Olive's Bower, the cave passage's floor and ceiling are much closer together, compared with the rest of Audubon Avenue.  This area used to be part of regular tourist routes, but the height and narrowness makes this impractical in modern times.

Locality: Olive's Bower, Mammoth Cave, western Kentucky, USA
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(accessed with park permission)

Some rights reserved

Taken on: March 12, 2024

Tags:

dripstone

travertine

stalactite

stalactites

Olive's

Bower

Mammoth

Cave

Ridge

National

Park

Kentucky

calcite

calcium

carbonate « less

Sets appears in: • Geology, History, Archaeology, Biology of Mammoth Cave National Park (Kentucky, USA) • Kentucky Rocks, Minerals, Fossils more » • Travertine speleothem (Mammoth Cave Ridge, Kentucky, USA) « less

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