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Wind Cave National Park- Their site here
Wind cave is one of the US' longest cave systems, and contains a very different kind of rock formation than is typically found in other cave systems called boxwork.
This rock formation is caused by the collection of mineral deposits in fractured rock formations over thousands of years. After the mineral is collected, the original rock is dissolved by water as the water changes pH, leaving the original deposits. 95% of the world's known boxwork formations are found in this one cave system. More pictures of the cave formations below:
There were a couple of places that we could see the writing that the original explorers had made on the cave walls.
This is called Frostwork. It is another type of mineral deposit and is found in this cave system often.
This cave descends more than 500 feet below the surface and extends more than 111 miles underground (albeit in a very twisting and mishmash manner. More info here. This was a really cool tour and we would like to come back when the kids are older to do the candle light tour.
This is a complete section of the cave covered in boxwork.
Now we are back to the entrance and ready to head on... |