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Texas' Deep Dark Secrets

© Joy Butler

Hidden deep in the heart of the Texas earth, in a darkened chamber the size of a football field, a magnificent secret wonderland comes alive in breathtaking splendor, with unique shapes, textures, and colors. Delicate works of nature hang from its ceiling like great chandeliers draped with translucent ribbons of rock. Glistening drops of pure water drip from the tips of icicle-like stalactites to splash upon sparkling stalagmites below or flow silently across the smooth faces of dripstone formations. Its walls, once the Gulf of Mexico ocean bed, display secrets of ancient marine life in the form of fascinating shells and fossils. This magical, underground wonderland results from centuries of nature's handiwork.

In the Castle of the White Giants, the second largest room in Natural Bridge Caverns, massive stalagmites rise from the floor so proportioned as to take on the resemblance of a king's throne. The tallest formation stands formidably, like a watchtower, over several mushroom shapes that billow out like atomic bomb bursts. Beneath them rests a pristine pool of water reflecting emerald hues from the formation that cradles it. Below that, Grendel's Canyon reaches 72 feet into the eerie depths of the cavern. Barely noticeable among the forest of formations, a carved corridor leads even deeper into the bowels of the earth toward dark mysterious chasms yet to be explored.

Texas claims over four thousand documented caves and caverns, two dozen of which are home to 100 million Mexican free-tailed bats. Honey Creek Cave, 30 miles north of San Antonio, with its twenty miles of passages, is the largest, and the privately-owned Sorcerer's Cave in Terrell County holds claim to the deepest at 525 feet.

Twenty-five percent of Texas terrain is karst. The Edwards Plateau in Central Texas is one of the largest continuous karst regions. Karst forms when water, that has become mildly acidic from carbon dioxide in the soil atmosphere, flows into cracks and holes in rock, usually limestone, eroding it chemically to produce caves and sinkholes. This area is a paradise to geologists, paleontologists, archaeologists, biologists, photographers and spelunkers.

Scientific study reveals much about the speleothem, or formations, in caverns. When water droplets seep through the ceiling, carbon dioxide is released and a tiny circular deposit of calcite results. Layer after layer is deposited until a fragile hollow tube forms creating the famous 'soda straws'. These fragile sculptures sometime break from their own weight. Some of them continue to grow and eventually become plugged by deposits causing the water to flow down the outside of the tube leaving calcium carbonate, which builds a stalactite. When water drips from the stalactite or from the ceiling, to the cavern floor, the resulting formation is called a stalagmite. Sometimes dense deposits of calcite from humic acid in soil create a dense yellow core with a less dense white edge thus creating formations resembling a fried egg. Flowstone forms when water seeps slowly over rock leaving colorful layers of mineral impurities. When the water flows down a sloping ceiling, a wavy trail of mineral matter is left behind, building thin translucent sheets which hang in folds earning the name, 'draperies' (second photo).

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