COOL CARLSBAD SPELEOTHEM
Frostwork on coralloids, King’s Palace Trail, Carlsbad Caverns. Available information indicates that frostwork forms by evaporation of water slowly seeping from cave walls or speleothem surfaces.
Cave pearls, Lower Cave (probably from the Rookery), Carlsbad Caverns (NPS public display photo). Cave pearls are (typically) spherical to subspherical, concentrically layered structures formed in some cave pools. Cave pearls require some object to act as a nucleus for growth of mineral precipitates. The nucleus can be a sediment grain, rock fragment, speleothem fragment, or biogenic debris. Cave pearl growth requires dripping water, a shallow cave pool setting, and supersaturation of pool water. Dripping prevents the cave pearls from becoming cemented to the substrate, although that can & frequently does happen.
Veiled Statue - a large, flowstone-covered column in the Green Lake Room, King’s
Palace Trail, Carlsbad Caverns.
Temple of the Sun, a large flowstone-covered composite column, near western wall of the Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns.
Crystal Spring Dome (Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns), a large, flowstone-covered stalagmite composed of nice white travertine. This feature is still actively growing, unlike most of Carlsbad's speleothem.
Crystal Spring Dome - this is the basal margin of the large stalagmite shown above. The almost-smooth upper portions of the photo are flowstone (travertine), with many small stalactites (dripstone) forming along the lower margin.
Drip pool at base of Crystal Spring Dome. Travertine surrounding the pool consists of many small-scale coralloids (cave popcorn).
Bulbous stalagmite (?) or eroded flowstone/dripstone (?), near Crystal Spring Dome, Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns.
Rock of Ages - a large, flowstone-covered column along the eastern wall of the Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns.
Dolls Theater (Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns), consisting of many columns and stalactites.
Chinese Theater (Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns), consisting of flowstone-covered columns and stalactites (some with coralloids/cave popcorn).
Chinese Theater (Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns), consisting of flowstone-covered columns & stalagmites & stalactites.
Big Room - partial view of the largest cave room at Carlsbad, and one of the largest single cave rooms on Earth.
Big Room, partial view.