Wind Cave National Park
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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:

c22- Wind Cave rock formation.jpg (163210 bytes) c23- Wind Cave rock formation 2.jpg (130966 bytes) c24- Wind Cave Rock formation 3.jpg (199185 bytes) d01- Rock formation in Wind Cave.jpg (227325 bytes)
d03- Wind Cave Rock Formation.jpg (155021 bytes) d04- limestone deposits in Wind Cave.jpg (176217 bytes) d05- water formations in Wind Cave.jpg (122563 bytes) d07- vault in Wind Cave.jpg (149390 bytes)
d08- boxwork sheets in Wind Cave.jpg (138365 bytes) d11- Rock formation in Wind Cave.jpg (126488 bytes) d12- dirt covered rock formations in Wind Cave.jpg (247869 bytes) d13- side tunnel in Wind cave.jpg (188194 bytes)
d15- many stairs to go down Wind Cave.jpg (124519 bytes) d16- more Wind Cave rock formations.jpg (153531 bytes) d17- sparkles in rocks at Wind Cave.jpg (183927 bytes) d18- Frosty Boxwork at Wind Cave.jpg (278079 bytes)

 

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...

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