Spelunking is the hobby or practice of exploring caves. Perhaps I’m claustrophobic; the idea of crawling around underground has never made the top of my “To Do” list. It is somewhere around cleaning toilets and root canals, but that's me.
The land forms and interesting geology created by nature are the main attraction of most caves tourists visit, and I do find geology interesting.
Photo Credit: Karst World-Photo source: copelandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com
AS A TOURIST
In my non-spelunking state of mind, I have still visited a number of the famous caverns of the world as a tourist. Much safer and less exhausting. Below are photos (not mine) of formations in the Lechuguilla Cave, Carlsbad caverns, New Mexico.
The land forms and interesting geology created by nature are the main attraction of most caves tourists visit, and I do find geology interesting.
Photo Credit: Karst World-Photo source: copelandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com
AS A TOURIST
In my non-spelunking state of mind, I have still visited a number of the famous caverns of the world as a tourist. Much safer and less exhausting. Below are photos (not mine) of formations in the Lechuguilla Cave, Carlsbad caverns, New Mexico.
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Crystal Chandelier Ballroom Tall Columns Atlantis Chamber
Photo Cedit: NPS/Gavin Newman Photo Source: traveltips.usatoday.com/carlsbad Image Credit: David Chailloux
Photo Source: nps.gov/Lechuguilla cave Photo Source: santafenewmexican.com/
Photo Cedit: NPS/Gavin Newman Photo Source: traveltips.usatoday.com/carlsbad Image Credit: David Chailloux
Photo Source: nps.gov/Lechuguilla cave Photo Source: santafenewmexican.com/
“Carlsbad Cavern formed between 4 and 6 million years ago, when water rich in hydrogen sulfide began to seep through cracks in the limestone that was formed hundreds of millions of years earlier by a vast sea that once covered New Mexico. As this water mixed with oxygen-rich rain runoff, the hydrogen sulfide combined with the oxygen to form sulfuric acid, which gradually ate away at the limestone to form the caverns that now exist beneath Carlsbad Caverns National Park.” https://traveltips.usatoday.com/carlsbad-caverns-new-mexico-59759.html
As you can see, anywhere tourists go, the underground caverns are lighted, some with colors, for safety, ability to see, and visual effect. Some, however, illuminated with a dramatic array of colors, like the Silver Cave, Guilin, China, on the left below. The Chinese really go all out for the carnival effect. When I first looked at some of the photos, I thought the colors were natural (and was amazed), but that appearance is the colored lighting.
 Silver Cave, Guilin, China Photo Source: https://topyaps.com/top-10-famous-caves-in-the-world/ |  Waitomo Glowworm Caves, New Zealand Photo Source: https://fantasticroutes.com/waitomo-glowworm-caves/ |
The photo on the upper right shows an entrance into the Waitomo Glowworm caves in New Zealand. To visit these caves, we entered in boats from the ocean and went up fairly narrow tunnels like the one above which were lighted ahead of us but unilluminated where the boats were traveling so we could see the glowworms.
When the narrow waterway opened into a great cavern, all the lights were turned off. It is totally black inside and the worms resemble stars on a clear night with no light. Absolutely amazing. Lots of drama without artificial lights.
THE PSYCHADELIC SALT MINE OF YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA
As I said before, the fascinating thing about natural caves are the geologic rock formations, the culmination of millions of years of land shifting and water flow.
Salt Mines are a whole different experience from exploring natural caves. Salt mines may have been natural caves when the salt deposits were discovered, and they made have contained awesome formations inside, but they have been internally shaped by the way humans and their tools have removed the salt over hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. The awesomeness of these caverns and tunnels is what the hand of man has revealed of nature’s wonders.
When the narrow waterway opened into a great cavern, all the lights were turned off. It is totally black inside and the worms resemble stars on a clear night with no light. Absolutely amazing. Lots of drama without artificial lights.
THE PSYCHADELIC SALT MINE OF YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA
As I said before, the fascinating thing about natural caves are the geologic rock formations, the culmination of millions of years of land shifting and water flow.
Salt Mines are a whole different experience from exploring natural caves. Salt mines may have been natural caves when the salt deposits were discovered, and they made have contained awesome formations inside, but they have been internally shaped by the way humans and their tools have removed the salt over hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. The awesomeness of these caverns and tunnels is what the hand of man has revealed of nature’s wonders.
The salt mines of Yekaterinburg, which are located 650 feet beneath the Russian city (1,000 miles to the east of Moscow), display dizzying surreal swirls and waves of color which are layers of the mineral carnallite, distorted and twisted by tectonic forces over millions of years since it was deposited on the floor of a salty sea.
Carnallite can be yellow and white or even red, blue, or clear. The layers, sometimes containing magnesium and potassium (often used as an ingredient in plant fertilizer), paint rivers of color across the walls of this abandoned salt mine, dating back millions of years to when a salty sea dried up, leaving be-behind the mineral deposits. These had been mined for millennia and then for-
Old salt mine extraction machine gotten until recently rediscovered.
Image Credit: Radu Razvan/Shutterstock.com
Photo Source: britannica.com/salt-mining The first photos of the Yekaterinburg mine came to light in 2014 thanks to the young Russian explorer-photographer Mikhail Mishainik, who even spent whole
nights down in mines.
Carnallite can be yellow and white or even red, blue, or clear. The layers, sometimes containing magnesium and potassium (often used as an ingredient in plant fertilizer), paint rivers of color across the walls of this abandoned salt mine, dating back millions of years to when a salty sea dried up, leaving be-behind the mineral deposits. These had been mined for millennia and then for-
Old salt mine extraction machine gotten until recently rediscovered.
Image Credit: Radu Razvan/Shutterstock.com
Photo Source: britannica.com/salt-mining The first photos of the Yekaterinburg mine came to light in 2014 thanks to the young Russian explorer-photographer Mikhail Mishainik, who even spent whole
nights down in mines.
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Image Credit: Image Credit: Mikhail Mishainik
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