On the same day we visited the Hamilton Pool, we continued to travel westward stopping to see the Caverns of Sonora located about 3 hours away. It's considered a world-class cave because of its stunning array of calcite crystal formations, especially helictites.
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| These million-year-old shells were found in the cave. |
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| Our guides were Thomas and his younger sister. |
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| On the left is a column, when a stalactite, such as the one hanging on the right and a stalagmite, the ones on the floor, connect to make one solid piece. It takes a hundred years for just an inch of either to be developed so imagine how many hundreds of years it took before that column was created. |
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| There are many types of deposits and are named based on their appearance. Some of these are called straw stalactite because there is a hole in the middle where the water drips through and it creates a long, skinny straw-like stalactite. |
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| We were not allowed to touch any of the cave. It was difficult to resist but you really got to get up close to see them. |
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| The guide hits a switch to turn on the lights in front of us and then turn off the ones behind us. At one point he turned off all lights for about 5 minutes so that we can see how it is to be in the pitch black cave. It's really dark-- your eyes can't adjust because there is literally no light anywhere. He said that an adult would become blind in three months if they stayed in the cave and a child would become blind in 10 days. |
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| Many of these formations are similar to coral that you would find under the sea. Although at one time, this entire cave was underwater. These formations were created about a million years ago. |
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| At this depth, the gases mixed with water in the aquifer. The resulting highly acidic water dissolved out the limestone, forming the cave. |
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