The "Underground Wonders Beneath Our Feet" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Talking with my wife about some of the really neat vacations we have been lucky enough to have taken since my retirement over 20 years ago.  We talked about one of our trips to Hawaii and the fun times we had while driving the road to Hana on the island of Maui.  

The end of a lava tube in a cave in Hawaii.

At one point we stopped and found our way through some lava caves until we reached a black sand beach.  While on a trip to Barbados we took a tour and one of the stops saw us descend stairs into a series of caves that led to the shore line on the north side of the island.  This particular cave was known as the Animal Flower Cave and was located under the cliffs at North Point, St. Lucy and is the island's lone accessible sea cave.  Another cave system on Barbados was known as Harrison's Cave and also was very interesting.  During our underground experience at Harrison's Cave we rode an electric tram along a path when viewing stalactites from above and stalagmites that rose from the earth.  

Opening in Animal Flower Cave in Barbados.

This particular cave was opened in 1981 and is a massive stream cave system that is almost a mile and a half  mile long.  Parts of it rise to a height of almost 50 feet.  It is a limestone cave and known as a solutional cave which is created when water mixed with a weak acid dissolves away rocks such as limestone.  Besides sea caves and solutional caves, there are lava caves that are created by the cooling of lava.  

Harrison's Cave in Barbados.

In this case a crust forms as lava cools and when the molten lava drains away, it leaves behind long tubes.  In the United States about one-fifth of the land has this type of landscape, called karst, where this kind of cave can form.  Have you ever visited a cave?  

This is a cave entrance along Bottom Bay Beach in Barbados.
I have found very little about it, but as you can see, it is very large.

Were you frightened as you walked through it?  Much of what we know about the first days of people on Earth we learned from cave discoveries.  Cave paintings existed long before paper was invented.  The layers of the earth and the materials that formed them were discovered in caves.  There are more than 40,000 caves in the United States.  Carol and I have visited Penn's Cave near State College during visits to our friends Jere and Sue.  

Heading into Penn's Cave near State College, PA.

It is America's only all-water cavern and is toured by boat.  The columns that grow from the roof and floor of the cave are known as speleothems.  They consist of stalactites which hang from the ceiling and have sharp points and look like icicles while the stalagmites rise from the floor and are formed by water dripping from stalactites and have rounded tops.  If and when they reach other, the formation is known as a column.

Riding through Harrison's Cave in Barbados.

 It is tough to live in a cave and there are very few cave dwellers.  These cave dwellers are animals that have adapted to the under- ground life of the cave.  Most are blind and could not survive above ground.  A few examples are cave fish, cave shrimp, millipedes and cave salamanders.  These cave dwellers tend to live in the part of the cave known as the dark zone.  Other species of mammals, insects, birds and amphibians make frequent visits to the caves or may live in them part-time and include raccoons, skunks, frogs, bats, crickets and earthworms.  If you have never visited a cave, give it a try if you are within driving distance.  You will be amazed at the underground wonders that can be found under your feet.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.