Hall City Cave facts for kids
The Hall City Cave is a cool limestone cave system found near Hayfork, California, in the United States. People first explored and wrote about it in 1903. Inside, they even found a fossil of an ammonite, which is a type of ancient sea creature, from the Permian age. That means it's super old!
A part of the Hall City Cave has a very deep pool of water.
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Discovering Hall City Cave
Explorers first wrote about the Hall City Cave in 1903. This cave is made of limestone, a common rock that dissolves slowly over time to form caves. One exciting discovery inside was an ammonite fossil. Ammonites were ancient sea animals with spiral shells. This particular fossil was from the Permian age, which was about 252 to 299 million years ago!
A Special Place for Native Americans
For the Nor-el-muk and other Wintu Native American groups, the Hall City Cave was a very important and sacred place. It held special meaning for them. A Wintu woman named Lucy, who lived a long life, shared stories about the cave. Her stories are kept in a museum in Ukiah, California.
The Mystery of the Lost Gold
There's a famous story that says the cave holds a treasure of $40,000 in gold. The tale goes that two miners were carrying this gold. They were attacked by two people, and the gold disappeared. A group of people then tracked down the attackers. They were asked where the gold was. The attackers said they had dropped the gold into a deep, water-filled hole at the back of the cave.
However, there are no official newspaper reports about this specific event. There is a report about two miners being attacked and their gold being buried somewhere else. So, the story of the gold in Hall City Cave remains a mystery!
Exploring the Cave's Depths
In 2012, a special robot was used to explore the deep water shaft in the cave. This robot was an OpenROV, which stands for "open-source remotely operated vehicle." It's like a small underwater drone that people can build themselves. This cool technology helped explorers look into the mysterious depths of the cave's water.
