Main Caving Page         Getting Underground     Cave Pictures     Colors in Caves     Airmen's Cave     Caving Links         My Home Page     Caving Pictures I hold the copyright on all of the photos below. I hold the original film and the scans from which these were made. If you wish to have prints made or higher-resolution copies of these scans, e-amil me and we can make arrangements. You can click on the images to enlarge them. Caverns of Sonora      Fish-Tail Helictites in The Caverns of Sonora - Caverns of Sonora is a show cave in central Texas. (The link goes to the cave web site.) Caverns of Sonora is generally considered the best show cave in Texas and can be reached via a county road departing Interstate 10 seven miles west of Sonora, Texas. These "fish-tail" helictites are formed when the crystal formation process dominates the usual drip formation of stalactites so they grow along crystal lattice lines. Calcium carbonate solution moves along capillaries in the formation to the edges where calcite is deposited. These formations are in the Crystal Palace, which is on one of the tour routes. I once described the Crystal Palace and the cave in general like this: "you've read about Faerie castles and things, right, like the Elves would build in The Lord of the Rings and stuff, all made of crystal and glass? Think of how beautiful they are supposed to be. Well, think about how much better God is than they are. They're good, but He is so much better, and He built the cave. Caverns of Sonora is God doing the Faerie castle thing."      The Caverns of Sonora Butterfly Formation and it's Attendant Fish-Tails - This image shows an area a few feet across of one wall in the Crystal Palace. The Butterfly (upper left) is one of the world's premier cave formations, but the right wing was broken off on November 21, 2006. (As of May 2007 there was a $20,000 reward for information that leads to recovery of the missing piece.)      Stalactite with Helictites and Fish-Tails - This Crystal Palace stalactite supports a burst of crystalline structures. Cavers often use the name "helictite" for non-vertical cave formations like this, though these are not "spiral" as the root "helict-" suggests. Non-vertical structures arise because the "argument" between formation only occuring where drips are and formation occuring along crystal lattice lines is being won by the cryatal lattice. Fins and "spines" are the result of different kinds of balance among these and other forces. Some speliologists believe that solution travels within helictites and fish-tails within tiny capillaries to the ends of the formation, where it forms new cryatal. In any case, all helictites have such tiny tubules. Non-vertical formation can only occur when water flow rate out of the formation to the ends is so slow that crystals form before drips carry the solution to the lowest point, where they would form a stalactite. Water droplets on the lower corners of these fish-tails have already lost so much of their mineral content higher up on the fin that they are no longer depositing much of it on the lower end.      Soda Straws and Fish-Tails - Soda straws, like the two coming down center from the top of this image, are the most delicate kind of stalactite. They are hollow and support a water column. Several new soda straws can be seen forming beneath helictites. This probably occurs because a change in the cave environment suddenly favored the new kind of growth. El Gruta del Palmito (Mexico, "Caverns of Bustamante")      Weird Stuff -This is a cross section of a kind of growth that covers much of one room in Gruta del Palmito in Bustamante, Mexico. The second image is a full resolution section of the center of the first image, so you can see the filamentous structure of the growths. The rock on the left hand side of the image is the base rock, and the "weird stuff" is a crust that forms on top of it. The cross-section was formed when part of the crust sloughed off some time in the past. Red mineral has grown up fungus-like, while aragonite "starbursts" have appeared on the ends of the growth, giving the appearance of a flower garden. Some starbursts have filled out into white nodules.      Red and White - This bright white flowstone formation is nestled in the red crust. The natural color of calcite is white, so here you can see the pure white mineral seeping through a red crust into the room, making a fabulous combination. The red color in this room is more prominent than what one usually sees in caves, indicating a brightly colored impurity in the red material. Whatever it is, it is not affecting the calcite, which remains white.      More Red and White - The color in the above picture is probably truer than here, but it is difficult to tell without the usual color references we have in the surface world such as trees and sky.      True Helictomania - This "spaghetti" covers a hundred square feet of cave wall in a cave in Mexico. The image is about 30x50 centimeters in size and the diameter of the formations is about one centimeter. This kind of speleothem is called helictite and it forms when water flow is so slow that water surface tension and crystal lattice structure - not gravity and dripping - control where minerals crystallize.      Lion's Tail - This kind of formation is called a "Lion's Tail." A stalactite was formed first, then the water level rose over the end, so that crystals formed. They are translucent, which is why they look so good backlit. Austin Caves      The Birth Canal - A friend, Randy, finally makes it (after 10 minutes of hard work) through the entry into Airman's Cave in Austin, July 1993. He is 6'4" tall and broad-shouldered. Skinny people take about a minute to do this 15-foot crawl - those who try it, anyway.      Randy and I before and after the trip into Airman's. This cave is easy on neither clothes nor energy level.      Pig on the Wing - This is in the infamous Aggy Art Gallerie in Airman's Cave in Austin, July 1995. The small room is traditionally filled with really weird stuff, which luckily remains confined there. Don't do this in your own cave.      District Park Cave This is me crawling through it, a rare shot, since I'm usually the one taking pictures. The pink flagging tape marks an allowed route set up after restoration work done in the cave from 1995-1996.      Waterfall in Midnight Cave, Austin - this beautiful little room is accessed by a 60-foot drop into a pit in a city park. It was buried 30 feet deep in trash which the original land owners over time had dumped into their "hole", but a decade of various clean-up projects, some involving prison labor, dug it out, exposing the original cave floor and pool. Other Caves      Cave with Cavers - The University of Texas Speliological society checks out Cobb Caverns. The red color in this picture may actually be due to iron oxide. Most orange cave colors attributed to it are not.      These rocks are formed like this partly due to erosion by slow motion of aquifer water when the cave was completely filled. There is evidence for recrystallization of minerals as well.      Two pictures of The Rock of the Ages in Carlsbad Caverns. It actually looks like Cthulhu the Great Old One, twice! The tentacles on the front of the "face" in the first image are different curtains than the ones in the second image, which is from the other side. People were singing hymns to the "Great Old One" when we were there in March, 1994, and it was very funny.      Travertine "Volcano" - This formation is around a warm spring inside the Soda Dam in Jemez Canyon, New Mexico; March 1991      This is me climbing out of a cave in Colorado Bend State Park, June 1995 Links to:  Home  Friends with Web Pages  Comet Hyakutake Information  General Space Sciences Information  Mathematics Links  Fractal Collection  Science Fiction, Fantasy, and RPG's  Miscellaneous Links   Illuminati Online  Mail: iareth@io.com