You are looking at the bottom of a very long formation set above Longfellow's Bathtub in Carlsbad Cavern, toward the end of the Big Room tour, shortly after Rock of Ages. The Cave Research Foundation completed a project last year that has been underway for ten years, cleaning the mud and silt from the bottom of this pool. We took advantage of the unusually dry state of the cave (which has lasted well over a decade) to painstakingly transfer water to a dry pool, remove mud, and move it back by the end of each long holiday weekend we spent in the cave. The results have been spectacular; if you could see the before and after shots, you would agree.
Thanksgiving weekend we worked on the Red Pools area (which will now have to be renamed, or they will when we finish removing the red clay that has discolored them). But while we were working, we checked the Bathtub to see how it looks. It has begun refilling! The shiny look of the flowstone tells you that it is active and wet. The pool is being dripped in, and the water level is already several inches higher than it was. And that wall has been dry for about thirty years - I last saw that wall wet that long ago.
We got it done just in time. It is now too deep to transfer enough water to nearby pools.
No comments:
Post a Comment