Oh, how we love a field trip. The kiddos do, too. :) Last week we were learning about the different layers of the Earth. One thing we learned was that under our soil is the crust containing sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rock. Here is where living in the mountains is an advantage. We looked up Linville Caverns on the Internet and had a great time perusing the site and all its pictures and decided a field trip this week would be in order.
Today was the day and we set out after breakfast. It was a beautiful drive of only about 45 minutes or so watching how the leaves are changing at different stages as we drove up and down in the mountains. You know, I was reminded how blessed we are to get to live here and not just visit...
And now to our regularly scheduled program, we arrived and got our tickets. For myself and the kiddos it was only $24 which I thought was very reasonable! They also give discounts to homeschoolers with your NC DNPE discount card (which I didn't have but will from now on). Tours start every 15 minutes which is nice so you don't have to wait long and the groups are small.
We went down into the cavern and this is what we saw...
Trout...that are blind...because they have always lived in total darkness in the cavern. Actually, that's only partly true. The way the cavern was discovered was by some fishermen in the early 1800's when they saw fish swimming in and out of what seemed solid rock. They found a small opening and began exploring and found the underground stream and beautiful rock formations. It opened for public touring in 1937.
Of course, the cavern is littered with stalactites and stalagmites and this is one of the largest. The green stuff is copper. There is algae growing near the lights because of the heat they put off but this is copper. They call it the "Guess What" rock because it looks like different things to different people. Our children thought it looked like a seal. I won't tell you what I thought it looked like.
This was one of my favorite parts of the tour. First, do you see that faint outline above and to the right of the light? That's a fossilized sand dollar! Second, and my favorite part, is a line running through the very middle of the picture through the rock in the background. That would be the Eastern Continental Divide, folks! A fault line! Never seen one in person! (Yes, I'm a science nerd) Our tour guide said that even though we have had some tremors in the last several years there has been no shifting of the rock at the line and no damage in the cavern.
It's hard to tell but the stuff on the shelf is called "cave coral." It looks like coral in person and is a rock formation.
In the top middle of the picture is a column. That would be here a stalactite and stalagmite join up.
It may be hard to see here but over to the left are what I would describe as "slivers." If you can see them, know that that is called "cave bacon." Not edible, of course, but very beautiful...as all bacon is.
We had a wonderful day on our field trip and I would highly recommend making the trek to Linville Caverns if you're in the area!
No comments:
Post a Comment