Since I'm poor but like going places, I've been trying to pack sight-seeing into every trip I make to the Manassas area (as evidenced by the Battlefield pictures above). On my way back, I hit Skyline Caverns - a place I hadn't been to in 16 years. Last time was for a friend's 10th birthday party. I still have the geode slice I bought.
Anyway. I apologize for the horribly shitty camera quality. My Sony did NOT like the lighting conditions, no matter how I tried to adjust for it, then ran out of batteries just as the guide was going to take a picture of me (coincidence?) so I switched to my Palm Pre. The Pre actually did better as far as lighting went, but can't zoom or focus very well.
The caves were discovered in 1937 by a retired geologist who saw the nearby sinkhole and went mucking about to see if there were any caverns. He found a ledge that was partially submerged in Virginia clay and mud (one of the most glorious back-breaking soils) and had 13 men help him clear it out until they broke into the caverns, which were otherwise clear except for a portion I'll get to later.
Many of the passages bore evidence of the inland sea that used to cover the area - I confess I didn't have my notebook out to copy down what the guide was saying so I don't know how many millions of years ago - but the weathering was pretty.
I struggled a lot with the white balance and exposure of my camera on a lot of the formations because the lighting threw a lot of things into sharp relief, and they are hesitant to use white lights due to moss growth, which normally wouldn't happen in a cave. On the second picture, G+ keeps trying to get me to tag various portions as a person - even the great god Google suffers from pareidolia at times.
Now this 'little' guy, which was actually wider than me and almost as tall (not a huge accomplishment) and which the park service allows you to touch, actually fell from the flat spot featured in the second picture, then was moved by water to its current position. Again, I don't remember the time frame she stated.
The "American Eagle" formation
Now, I just want to say something here. I walked into these caverns still "reeling," so to speak, from the idiocies of the dinosaur thread. And most or all of you know by now that when I talk about the "glories of nature" I'm usually referring to beautiful living green things - beauty that is impossibly ephemeral compared to what was going on down here. The pictures below are hardly spectacular, but let me lay the scene.
The guide turned off the lights in order for us to experience true "cave darkness" - a black so impenetrable it produces an instant twinge of helplessness and fear. Humans weren't meant for these places. It's impossible to experience even through movies, which still are lit in some way to show vague shapes of formations and any creepy creatures inside. In true dark, you would go blind from straining your optic nerve, and mad from disorientation. Any creatures down there have no eyes - they are blind.
And then the lights come on again and you see columns that resemble anything from the Parthenon to melting wax to dripping ice cream. Ribbons and draperies of impossibly thin stone hanging from every surface - finer than the most delicately carved marble in Rome. Splatters of calcite that lay like lace and cobweb over the rock face. Stalagmites that look like crouching creatures and gnomes. Faces worn away into the rock. Huge cliffs of stone overhanging open spaces, suspended by seemingly insufficient portions of their anatomy. Hollow structures of rock that gong when you hit them.
If it hadn't been discovered, water would still be inexorably seeping and dripping and winding through, carving it away, shaping it and smoothing it, building shapes and wearing away others, and no human (re: God's "chosen") would ever know. The time frame for it to happen is so unfathomable, so out of comprehension and makes you feel so tiny and insignificant, it's no wonder YEC's would cling to the comfort of a 6,000 year old earth.
Stay tuned for the follow up with the portion that had to be dug out. I'd finish it in one go, but the site only allows you to post 10 pics at a time.
Anyway. I apologize for the horribly shitty camera quality. My Sony did NOT like the lighting conditions, no matter how I tried to adjust for it, then ran out of batteries just as the guide was going to take a picture of me (coincidence?) so I switched to my Palm Pre. The Pre actually did better as far as lighting went, but can't zoom or focus very well.
The caves were discovered in 1937 by a retired geologist who saw the nearby sinkhole and went mucking about to see if there were any caverns. He found a ledge that was partially submerged in Virginia clay and mud (one of the most glorious back-breaking soils) and had 13 men help him clear it out until they broke into the caverns, which were otherwise clear except for a portion I'll get to later.
Many of the passages bore evidence of the inland sea that used to cover the area - I confess I didn't have my notebook out to copy down what the guide was saying so I don't know how many millions of years ago - but the weathering was pretty.
I struggled a lot with the white balance and exposure of my camera on a lot of the formations because the lighting threw a lot of things into sharp relief, and they are hesitant to use white lights due to moss growth, which normally wouldn't happen in a cave. On the second picture, G+ keeps trying to get me to tag various portions as a person - even the great god Google suffers from pareidolia at times.
Now this 'little' guy, which was actually wider than me and almost as tall (not a huge accomplishment) and which the park service allows you to touch, actually fell from the flat spot featured in the second picture, then was moved by water to its current position. Again, I don't remember the time frame she stated.
The "American Eagle" formation
Now, I just want to say something here. I walked into these caverns still "reeling," so to speak, from the idiocies of the dinosaur thread. And most or all of you know by now that when I talk about the "glories of nature" I'm usually referring to beautiful living green things - beauty that is impossibly ephemeral compared to what was going on down here. The pictures below are hardly spectacular, but let me lay the scene.
The guide turned off the lights in order for us to experience true "cave darkness" - a black so impenetrable it produces an instant twinge of helplessness and fear. Humans weren't meant for these places. It's impossible to experience even through movies, which still are lit in some way to show vague shapes of formations and any creepy creatures inside. In true dark, you would go blind from straining your optic nerve, and mad from disorientation. Any creatures down there have no eyes - they are blind.
And then the lights come on again and you see columns that resemble anything from the Parthenon to melting wax to dripping ice cream. Ribbons and draperies of impossibly thin stone hanging from every surface - finer than the most delicately carved marble in Rome. Splatters of calcite that lay like lace and cobweb over the rock face. Stalagmites that look like crouching creatures and gnomes. Faces worn away into the rock. Huge cliffs of stone overhanging open spaces, suspended by seemingly insufficient portions of their anatomy. Hollow structures of rock that gong when you hit them.
If it hadn't been discovered, water would still be inexorably seeping and dripping and winding through, carving it away, shaping it and smoothing it, building shapes and wearing away others, and no human (re: God's "chosen") would ever know. The time frame for it to happen is so unfathomable, so out of comprehension and makes you feel so tiny and insignificant, it's no wonder YEC's would cling to the comfort of a 6,000 year old earth.
Stay tuned for the follow up with the portion that had to be dug out. I'd finish it in one go, but the site only allows you to post 10 pics at a time.