Snowy River Cave facts for kids
Snowy River Cave is a cool cave found inside Fort Stanton Cave in Lincoln County, New Mexico. It got its name because it has a stream bed that looks like a snowy river, covered in bright white calcite.
What is Snowy River Cave?
The bottom of Snowy River Cave is covered in super bright white calcite. Over a very long time, water slowly moved through the ground. This water dissolved the limestone walls of the cave. Tiny living things called microorganisms also helped. They changed the limestone into the white mineral you see today.
For thousands of years, water full of dissolved calcite has sometimes flooded the cave. Then, there would be long dry periods. This cycle left behind the white coatings and deposits. Fort Stanton Cave, which includes Snowy River, is one of the biggest caves in the USA. It has the fourth largest "cave footprint," which is the total area of all its known passages.
The Bureau of Land Management says that Snowy River might be the longest continuous cave formation in all of America. A speleothem is a fancy word for a cave formation, like stalactites or stalagmites.
How Water Flows in the Cave
Snowy River was first discovered in 2001. It is part of a much bigger cave system. Scientists are still trying to figure out how the cave formations connect to the water flow.
Explorers visited the dry riverbed in 2001, 2003, and 2005. They were surprised when they found Snowy River flowing with water in 2007. It also flowed again in 2010 after a lot of snow fell in winter.
By 2014, cave explorers had mapped parts of the cave. They reached points as far as 12 miles (about 19 kilometers) from the cave's only entrance. In August 2014, Snowy River started flowing again. It kept flowing for the next three years! This made it hard for explorers to go far upstream past a spot called Midnight Junction. That's where they had set up a camping area inside the cave.
By 2017, the mapped passages reached 31.59 miles (about 50.84 kilometers). This makes Fort Stanton Cave the third longest cave in New Mexico. Snowy River itself is about 11 miles long. This makes it the world's longest calcite formation!
A non-profit group has worked in the cave for a long time. In 2017, they published a new book called "12 Miles From Daylight." It has over 300 pages and 350 photos and maps. The book shares stories of explorations from 1855 until today.
Amazing Cave Life
Scientists have found some amazing tiny living things in Snowy River Cave. They found bacteria on the cave walls that can produce antibiotics. They also found about 36 types of bacteria that use manganese.
The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology says these organisms live in this isolated cave environment. They break down manganese compounds using chemicals. In the process, they create new mineral byproducts. These byproducts might even be useful for making medicines! Scientists believe they will find many more new biological and geological discoveries in the cave.
