found

Halite Flowers - These curlicue extrusions (known as "flowers") are made up of a mineral more common to your kitchen than to caves. Arid caves of Australia's Nullarbor Plain have supported growth of these delicate fibers of halite, better known to surface-dwellers as table salt (NaCl, or sodium chloride).

Folia are a rare formation found near or just below the water line. Found on celings and walls, they resemble inverted rimstone dams. They are thought to form primarily near the top of the water table, and are associated with a declining water level. Like shelfstone, they probably form from precipitates on water surfaces that accrete to walls. As the water lowers, more calcite is deposited underneath, forming a flat surface. Another theory suggests that carbon dioxide is trapped in the ribs and promotes calcite deposition inside.

     Columns are formed by the unions of stalagmites and stalactites. As compound cave formations, they include among their ranks the tallest free-standing speleothems in the world.

A rare type of cave formation, balloons are a small, gas-filled pouch usually made of hydromagnesite. Their origin is not completely known, but is likely related to moonmilk, a material of high plasticity. Balloons probably occur when solutions under pressure seep into a cave through cracks or out of porous walls of limestone. If they meet moonmilk on their way out, the material may expand much like a rubber balloon. The thin moonmilk coating which forms the cast may crack or dry out, exposing the underlying hydromagnesite balloon.

Bottlebrushes are formed when stalactites become immersed in a cave pool for a long period of time. For this to occur, a change in waterflow into the area beneath the stalactite had to occur to produce a pool. This often accompanied changes in climate which brought more rain, such as during the Pleistocene. Rather than continuing to grow longer, the stalactite will become coated with pool spar if the pool is supersaturated with calcite. This photo is from Lechuguilla Cave, New Mexico, and shows an unusual coating colored red by iron minerals in the water.

Deflected stalactites are unusual stalactites that seem to defy gravity by forming in a curve. Their formation is not completely understood, but is most likely due to strong cave air flow. In some places this is quite evident, with groups of stals all curving in the same direction.

Death coral is an unusual form of coralloid found in the caves of the Purificacion area in northern Mexico. They occur in a great many shapes and sizes, always on the floor. The reason for their unique forms is not clear, as their means of formation is speculative. Most coralloids develop above water, from thin films of seeping, calicte-laden water. Since death coral is always found on the floor, they are most likely formed below water. On the other hand, subaqueous coralloids tend to be more rounded, while death coral is, as the name implies, sharp-edged. The mystery of death coral's formation is a problem waiting to be solved.

Fibrous formations are composed of aggregates of crystals which are fibrous or filament-like in nature. Most typically they are gypsum, but can be composed of a variety of other mineral salts like epsomite or halite. In form they are generally classified into four subtypes, hair, cotton, rope, and snow... All fibrous formations form from saturated solutions being squeezed out of pores in the bedrock (usually limestone)and depositing at they hit air. They grow from the base, with pressure forcing the deposited sections out as new sections are formed. The size of the pores determines how thick the crystals are, finer pores forming cotton or hair and larger ones forming rope.

"Splattermite" is the informal name that cavers use to describe a peculiar type of stalagmite featuring platy, upright protrusions. These protrusions arc around the central axis of a splattermite, fed by rings of drip splash that rebound from the formation's growing tip.

Pool spar are crystals which grow underwater in cave pools, and are a subtype of spar crystal, a depositional deposit usually made of calcite or gypsum, but sometimes of less common (to caves) minerals such as barite, fluorite, halite, or quartz. Most spar forms underwater, either in the phreatic zone (below the water table, where most caves are formed), or in standing pools, as pool spar.

     Draperies are deposited from calcite-rich solutions flowing along an overhung surface. Surface tension allows these solutions to cling to a wall or sloping ceiling as they stream slowly downward. Loss of carbon dioxide to the cave atmosphere then causes the solutions to become supersaturated with respect to calcite, which is deposited in a thin trails. Initial calcite trails, hanging slightly lower than the surrounding surface, become preferential routes for continued flow, and so develop into slender, delicate sheets.

Canopies are a subtype of flowstone that protrude from a cave wall or speleothem and have a relatively flat surface underneath. A clastic canopy occurs when flowstone flows over material such as rock or clay, that is washed away later. A Bell Canopy, with its classic mushroom-like shape, is due to variations in the flowing water that forms the flowstone. In low flow, the water deposits near the top and doesn't reach the bottom of the bell, higher flows reach the edge of the bell and deposit calcite there.

Aragonite, like calcite, is made up of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It differs from calcite, however, in its internal crystalline structure. Dense masses of tiny aragonite crystals can be difficult to distinguish from calcite, but when the crystals are large, they reveal a distinctive external form, or crystal habit. Aragonite crystals are long and needle-like.

Electric Dreams Back Issues Archive

x

It had been claimed to have fossil shells on the surfaces "that dated back 500,000 years" but the University of Washington geologist could find no evidence of this claim. This raises the question of "the qualifications and competency of the original alleged geologist ... in 1961". The reason the artifact gained the fame that it did was because of the shell claim. As of 2019, the artifact resides at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, where it is shown in an exhibition called "What Is Reality?"[6] Wikipedia