Carlsbad Caverns, United States
Tread lightly in this desert. T e steep, zigzag path is covered with cactus. It ends abruptly, blocked by a wall of rock. Just ahead you see the mouth of a huge cave. Step forward with caution. T e cave you
are about to enter is home to a colony of about 400,000 Mexican free-tailed bats. T e bats live here from April to October. At night, they fl y out of the cave together, a black mass corkscrewing upwards into the sky. Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico is made
up of 120 diff erent caves. T ere is little danger in exploring, however. Adventurers before you have paved the way. To begin, you move through a series
of narrow tunnels. T en you enter a large chamber called the Big Room. It’s a massive natural limestone cavern as
large as six football fields. It’s the fiſt h-largest cave in North America. It’s been named the twenty-seventh-largest cave in the world.
20 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER Caves don’t form overnight. T e making
of this system took hundreds of thousands of years. It started when surface water trickled down through tiny cracks in limestone. T e water is naturally acidic because it has absorbed a gas called carbon dioxide from the air and earth. T e acid solution slowly dissolves, or eats away, the limestone. Over time, cracks expanded to become caves and cave systems. Hollowing out a cave isn’t all the water
does. Tiny water droplets drip from the ceiling of many caves. T ey carry dissolved material from the limestone with them. T e water evaporates and leaves a stoney deposit behind. As it piles up, a stalactite forms. Stalactites hang down from the cave ceiling like stone icicles. Stalagmites are pillars, which rise up from the fl oor. When these features meet in the middle, they form a column. As you wander, look for features called the Totem Pole, Witch’s Finger, and Hall of Giants!
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