The gray limestone walls of this extensive cave are encrusted with mineral coatings in a variety of colors: orange, red, brown, black, and yellow. A number of areas in the cavern system are crowded with formations - stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and draperies. Most of these are pure white glowing translucently in an explorer's light. However some are a dark opaque red, or have red roots starkly contrasting with their white newer growth.
Dimensions Several main passages run linearly for hundreds of yards/meters, and the total length of passages is about a mile (1.6 kilometers). Many passage floors are less than a yard/meter) wide, with walls sloping back to allow somewhat more room two yards/meters above floor level. These passages are a few yards/meters high. A few rooms in the cave are much wider, ten or twenty yards/meters across, but have low ceilings only about three feet (one meter) high.
Key Details
- The cave mainly consists of a few long, very straight passages intersecting each other at odd angles. Its cave map would look like scattered matchsticks. These long passages are quite narrow, especially at foot level, requiring explorers to proceed single-file.
- In some spots there are short branch passages connecting to other nearby main passages, or ending in plugs of dried cave mud. The corners leading into these branches are very sharp, making a side passage difficult to notice until a person is right next to it. A few inches of water covers the floor in some side passages.
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- The narrow-floored passages are widest about at an explorer's shoulder level, reducing feelings of restriction, providing space to swing arms, and enhancing the lengths of down-passage views for groups walking single file.
- The colors on the wall are from minerals that have seeped down with water from the rocks and soil above: yellow and orange iron oxides, black manganese oxide and carbon, white calcite. The dark red stalactites and draperies are of a very rare type. They are made of pure natural rust (iron oxide), and seem to have formed in an earlier era than the more common, white ones.
- The cave sits within a low bedrock ridge that rises gently above a broad, deep-soiled plain and nearby hills. Its natural entrances are in sinkhole depressions on the wooded slopes.
- Many of the smallest-size white stalactites are soda straws, thin and hollow-centered. Unlike the other stalactites, stalagmites, and columns, these are fragile and easy to break off. Water drops hang at their bottom tips, depositing more calcite there to aid their growth, A few of these tiny formations are helectites, seemingly ignoring the pull of gravity by growing sideways rather than strictly downward.
- In some sections of narrow passage the ceilings are high-reaching crevices only inches/centimeters wide, marking the straight lines of bedrock fractures. In other sections the ceilings are very irregular in height, or are perforated by multiple holes revealing larger empty space just above.
- Low-toned sounds (low voices, bass musical notes) reverberate strongly in the narriw passages, carrying great distance. Higher tones (treble notes, whispers) do not carry very far.
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- Some of the wall and ceiling mineral deposits are knobby or are composed of close-set drapery lines. These present rough edges to brush against and small recesses where light cannot easily reach.
- The low-ceilinged, wide rooms have floors of dried cave mud. In areas where there are stalactites, many of these have grown to reach the floor and form solid columns, making an explorer's crawling path more difficult. Stalagmites and broader sheets of deposited calcite coat the mud in some floor areas. In a few locations the mud has washed away or been dug out, making two-level sections of passage separated by a calcite rock floor.
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Story Elements
- Characters can move throughout this array of passages without need to climb up or down; the passage floors are quite level. However, there are rare spots where a side passage ends in a pit leading further down into the bedrock. This opens the possibility of further exploration into spaces with deep water or other challenges. A pit might also be an emergency hiding spot, or source of a new threat rising into the main passages.
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- On
Reference Location
Ohio Caverns, in west-central Ohio. This commercially operated cave is open throughout the year, excepting some holidays. Most of the areas featured in this article can be seen on the Winter Tour or the summer Natural Wonders tour.
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