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Home: Middle East: Oman: Mountains: Hoota:
decorating a cave
“Tourists love us. The Parisians, of course”– /
she blushed–”are amused, though not without /
a certain admiration . . .” /
The Chateaubriand
T S Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922
This aeration is essential to the natural process of decorating a cave with deposits that collectively form speleothems: stalactites hanging down from the ceiling, stalagmites reaching up from the floor, and other such dripstones. When water enters into contact with the air of a cave, some of the carbon dioxide in the water escapes, leaving behind a residue of calcium carbonate. Each drop of water that drips down leaves behind its signature, and the deposits build upon themselves to form the long, tapering forms we marvel at today. As the water that supplies the stalactites drips down and splatters on the floor, it too leaves behind a deposit, forming stalagmites on the ground, a counter image to the formations above.
© 2001-2007 Pinaki