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Grand Caverns final post

3/12/2014

Grand Caverns is grand, with loads of awesome formations and a whole lot of rare shield formations. But my photography for this trip was mostly to look at the small stuff. I get down there once in a while, and will do more passage shots at some point. For now...

One of the more rare formations in caves are...

Anthodites. These are pretty little blooms of crystal

Close up of a water drop on the end of one of the needles (which appears to have had the tip broken off at some point). I am no geology hotshot, but this seems odd to me on an anthodite.

And as promised, another shot of the hydromagnesite balloons. They are in an uncomfortable place for photos, but got what I got. Here is a pic of a popped balloon.

Hydromagnesite balloon pop.

More helictites between draperies

And a signature, among the hundreds in the cave...

Looks like Herb Jacobs 18th Jan 1812. But you make the call, as it isn't so obvious.

So with all these pics and whatnot, we were actually in the cave to clean green stuff from around the lights. Which we did.

Connor with a scrub pad and a growl in a high-level light location. Much scrubbing was needed up there.

Connor working to clean the green stuff from a wall above a light

Again, not our project, but formations can turn green in commercial caves. Very hard to deal with. Might be something for future work.

And thus ends my bit on Grand Caverns. Hope you enjoyed seeing the photos.

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Grand Caverns continued

3/11/2014

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First up is a bit of animal scratching on the wall

Not a great photo, but it shows a lot of animal scratch marks on the cave wall. Likely racoons and opossums.

The tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus)

A springtail (Collembola) non-cave adapted and a mosquito-like thing photographed on the surface of a cave pool (click on the photo and you will also see that the blob in the middle is also a critter of some sort). Of note, finding small things on the surface of water in caves is actually a good way to find what lives in the cave.

This spider, maybe two millimeters in body size, was spotted on some dry calcite. Okay, technically this is an Opiliones, popularly known as harvestman or daddy-longlegs, and thus I probably shouldn't call it a spider even though most folks think of them as such. NEW: I have an ID. This is Erebomaster weyerensis

And to finish, some hydromagnesite balloons. I will put up more pics of this bit at some point.

Hydromagnesite balloons in Grand Caverns

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Grand Caverns part II

3/10/2014

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So, caves have been photographed at the large scale, and I do this too, but for another evening's post I am going to continue to focus on the small stuff. Sometimes tiny scale. Here are more of my pics from Grand Caverns.

Condensation balls on, well, what? fungus or lichen or algae?

And I actually have two pics of this.

Helictites between draperies.

Calcite crawling across the void.

A bat that died in place, fully articulated, in Grand Caverns.

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Grand Caverns, Grottoes, VA

3/9/2014

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And that's a title only cavers can understand fully. First up, Grand Caverns is a commercial cave located in Grottoes, VA. Take a tour if you are in the area (just south of Harrisonburg, VA) as it is a pretty and historical cave. Discovered in 1804, it is the oldest continuously operating show cave in the US. Tours started there in 1806. They have a pretty nice website at: http://www.grandcaverns.com/v.php?pg=15

Next up, the name. Grand Caverns was adopted in 1926, presumably to shorten the cave name and give it a name appealing to tourists.

And finally, the name of the town. I don't know the history, but can explain the word "grotto." A grotto is a cave with human usage in some way, and Grand Caverns has seen human usage as a show cave and historical site for over 200 years.

I was there as part of a group that has volunteered over the last many years to map the cave, clean the cave, improve the cave and generally use caver volunteers to help out as needed. Many, many projects have been completed. But one project that needs continual attention, is the cleaning of green stuff growing around the lights that are used for the commercial tours. Yes, as said so eloquently in Jurassic Park, "Life will find a way," and here it is algae and such that grows underground, and is green with chlorophyll, using the cave's lighting as an energy source. Such things are not part of the normal cave ecosystem, so need removed.

And of course, while in the cave, I took my usual bunch of photos, and will put them up here over the next couple days. For today, I am going to focus on soda straws, because I posted the quite interesting soda straw with an air bubble recently from Melrose Caverns, and figured to post some pics of normal soda straws in action.

But first...

I arrived Friday night (with my son along) and it was on the cold side, dropping to 27 degrees. So we had a fire in the outdoor pavilion where we were camping. Note this is NOT a campground, the cavers have special permission to do this to be more effective.

And waking up in the morning I crawled out of my tent, which I set up under the pavilion on one very hard and cold cement slab, I saw...

Lots of sunshine, which was great, and still lots of snow on the ground.

But I was here, with some old friends and my kid, and time to look around.

A sign in the woods. Welcome! So much better than all the No Trespassing signs these days

The property is a community park located on the South River, and this is looking downstream

And this is looking upstream. A fine trail goes along the river and a few folks were fishing for trout

Looking across the park toward Cave Hill, where the entrance to Grand Caverns is about halfway up

But that's enough about the site, let's talk about soda straws. These are cave formations made out of calcium carbonate that form when a drop of water is released from the cave ceiling over and over again for many years from the same spot. They are, as one might suspect, hollow tubes roughly the size of the straw you drank your last McDonald's soft drink with.

The water comes through the limestone rock, and drips from the ceiling of the cave. And each time it does this the water de-gasses a bit of carbon dioxide and deposits a bit of calcium carbonate around the circumference of the drip, forming a tube with a drip at the bottom, and the water coming through the tube.

So it is a crystalline structure, made of calcium carbonate (with a few other possible chemical compositions that do not need mentioned here), that is in the shape of a soda straw and has water moving down the middle of it.

And a brand new one looks like this...

Very young soda straw, only just starting to get the form. Probably less than 200 years old, but really shows the crystal growth around the rim.

And getting back to the issue of things going green underground, here is a green soda straw. We were not tasked to clean formations, just clean the crud from around the lights, but this demonstrates the trouble that commercial caves have in keeping down the green stuff.

Green soda straw due to commercial lighting. Cool pic, but not what you want your soda straws to look like.

Now the proper soda straw shots, after so much ado...

A small soda straw (with another in the background) just starting to load up some water from it's ceiling source. At this point it is weighted to the left

Now the little straw has a proper water droplet.

And then off it goes, leaving a tiny bit of calcite to continue the soda straw, and maybe a tiny bit to continue the stalagmite below

And a crop of this one for folks who want to see the nitty gritty details.

Right after a drop falls from a soda straw

And that's the story on soda straws. More tomorrow from the Grand Caverns weekend.

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Subway Cave, Virginia

3/6/2014

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Subway Cave is an interesting cave, located at the end of a massive blind valley (a valley where the stream ends by going underground). Sadly, I've only been in the cave once.

Scott Olson navigating a passage with roughly a keyhole shape about to pop out into passage where one can walk sorta normal again.

Scott Olson in the far reaches of Subway Cave where it is all crawls.

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Accotink Creek, Mill Creek Park, Virginia

3/5/2014

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Monday and Tuesday the schools were closed due to snow, so did not get to go for a walk in a park. Today the schools had a two-hour delay, so just enough time to sneak in a 1.5 hour walk at Mill Creek Park. This is a riparian park that follows Accotink Creek, with a paved trail (under snow today).

This creek floods, and generally isn't awesome for pics as there is flood debris all over the place. But with the snow, it became pretty.

Accotink Creek in the snow

And as always, there were things to photograph.

How about a bird nest from last year with a snow egg

Which is the start of what was good day birding, and another very average photo of a pileated woodpecker (a great shot still eludes me).

Pileated woodpecker

But then there were two woodpeckers, a pair!

Which of course led to even more not great shots of these awesome birds.

But lots of smaller birds as well

A song sparrow in the brush

This male cardinal was singing, seems like the birds think Spring is here

And the towhee has arrived, singing about drinking your tea

A mourning dove on a wire near where the trail started

And then... Don't get me started!!! The Hokey Pokey started and this red-shouldered hawk got into it...

Hokey Pokey? Let's do it!

You put your right leg in and you shake it all about...

Then you turn yourself around and do the Hokey Pokey, and that's what it is all about!

Hope you enjoyed this walk with me along Accotink Creek. But just one more thing. I was observing my surrounding, looking for things, and caught the toss of a tail through a lot of brush. Thinking a deer, I moved into position to get a look, and...

It was a red fox! Really enjoyed seeing this guy,

Accotink Creek on March 5, 2014

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Cuba, releasing an Antillian Ghost-faced bat (Mormoops blainvilli)

3/4/2014

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Jose letting the bat go. Weight and all the other particulars were measured.

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Isla de Mona, Puerto Rico

3/3/2014

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Isla de Mona is an island roughly halfway between the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. It is part of Puerto Rico, which is a territory of the United States.

And it takes a boat to get there, and after many hours on that boat you see..

A ship wreck in front of the numerous cave entrances on Isla de Mona.

The island is a mostly flat-topped mesa in the middle of the sea, with a lot of caves.

And there is a bit in common with the comics about a deserted island, which is different from a desert island. This is a desert island, and has lots of cactus and otherwise spiny plants to demonstrate such, but other than a biologist and a guard is also a deserted island..

Spiny cactus and sharp limestone make walking interesting.

But we were fearless and hit a lot of caves while there (this was back around the year 2000)

Off to Agua Cave

Agua Cave is a rather small cave, but one of the few caves on the island that goes down to water. Don't slip on the trail!

Pretty stuff in Agua Cave

And the blue water at the bottom of the cave.

But there are dozens of caves. I will end this with a couple pics from Erickson Cave.

Rex looking at a wild pile of stal.

Rex on a trail. These caves were mined heavily for guano back in the day, and lots of reminders of such are still there.

And there are a number of caves with artwork. Here, still in Erickson Cave, is a bit where fingers smooshed some art on the walls. This is unique in the Caribbean to my knowledge.

And this seems like something of note. There is a likely pre-Colombian artwork here with a bit of mud over-scribbles that looks like a crucifixion (the arms out are clear in the larger-sized pic). Or something. Both Pre-Colombian art and early post-Colombian art seem present in this room.

And while all these caves seem like they should be connected, some are not. From Erickson Cave, there is a high-level route to get to Surprise Cave. And I end this post with a photo of Matt on this rather exposed bit.

Matt crossing the exposed section of trail after working in Surprise Cave

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Central Pennsylvania caves

3/2/2014

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Sticking with the caving theme, I am putting up a few shots of caves from central Pennsylvania. As I continue to scan my slides (a woefully slow process) there will be a lot more caving pictures here.

And since we are preparing for yet another snowstorm and cold temps here in Falls Church, VA,, I went with two shots with ice and one that was a winter trip and we were hiking in deep snow to get to the cave.

First up...

Brrrr. Fry Cave entrance in winter.

This is Gypsy standing outside the entrance to this quite small cave. From the outside it has this classic entrance shape of a cartoon cave entrance. And it is right beside the stream, so one might think it would go somewhere. But it does not. Just a pretty little cave with a lot of ice on a cold day.

I got permission to visit the cave a long time ago, and have no idea if visitation is allowed currently.

And a really cold cave is...

Bilgers Rocks Ice Cave. We actually had a fine but frigid time mapping these caves one winter, although you wouldn't know it from the expression on Mike Petery's face.

Bilgers Rocks is a sandstone outcrop with a few small caves. And, it has its own website at: http://www.bilgersrocks.com/index.htm

The third cave for today is McAlisterville Cave, located in Juniata County (Contact Nittany Grotto: http://www.caves.org/grotto/nittany/main.htm for access information).

McAlisterville Cave's big passage, with Mike Petery (in front) and Andy Fluke.

And no, the cave didn't have some weird gravity. I put them in those odd poses to try and frame them in the flashs' light. This was back in the day before infrared flash slaves or radio triggers were being used to set off remote flashes. This photo was taken in total darkness in the cave, and I had the camera set for 1 second shutter speed. Upon hitting the shutter button I would shout and everyone (three people in this photo) would set off their flash manually.

And as always back in the day, you had no idea whether you got the shot or not. You had to wait until the slides got developed. Here I am fairly satisfied with the result, as this passage was deemed hard+ to photograph given its structure and I got something showing it, even if not perfect.

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Petroglyph from the Werehpai caves of Suriname

3/1/2014

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The country of Suriname, (located on the north coast of South America) has pretty much one known bit with caves. A small area with boulder caves in not more than a hectare or two. But the caves have a number of pre-Columbian artworks, and thus is an important site other than being the only known caves in Suriname.

And this site is way out there, requiring a plane ride to a grass landing strip in the village of Kwamalasamutu in the far south of the country where there are no roads, and then a boat ride up river, ending with a long hike in.

And here is one pic of the Petroglyphs.

And, while most just follow my photo blog, the website does have a lot more, with a lot of photo galleries. The gallery for this this cave is:
http://www.tropicalbats.com/werehpai-caves-gallery.html

I would have a lot more cave pics from the cave, but I wasn't the assigned photographer on the trip, so just grabbed what I could.

But a reasonable reminder that there are a lot of photo galleries on my website, although most folks will just enjoy a new photo in the morning.

kc

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Grand Caverns final post

Grand Caverns continued

Grand Caverns part II

Grand Caverns, Grottoes, VA

Subway Cave, Virginia

Accotink Creek, Mill Creek Park, Virginia

Cuba, releasing an Antillian Ghost-faced bat (Mormoops blainvilli)

Isla de Mona, Puerto Rico

Central Pennsylvania caves

Petroglyph from the Werehpai caves of Suriname

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