I am preparing a paper for my geology class on the Natural Bridge Caverns and could use some help finding geological information related to caverns such as age of caverns as opposed to when they were discovered. I plan to visit...

kwikkarl65

I am preparing a paper for my geology class on the Natural Bridge Caverns and could use some help finding geological information related to caverns such as age of caverns as opposed to when they were discovered.

I plan to visit this landmark in the next few weeks to add to my research, but most of what I have found online is more commercial in nature.

I was wondering if anyone could share some links where I could find the type of information that would be helpful to me when creating this paper.

Thanks in advance to anyone who assists me with this!

Karl

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replied to: kwikkarl65

SAcaver

Replied to: I am preparing a paper for my geology class on the...

I picked up your question from Google alerts.

I'm the cavern geologist for Natural Bridge Caverns. There aren't many links on the web for the caverns' geology. You can find some information on the University of Texas - Austin's Edutopia site at http://www.esi.utexas.edu/outreach/caves/

The Caverns are formed in Cretaceous limestones of central Texas, specifically the upper Glen Rose Formation and the lowermost of the Edwards. We believe the caverns to be perhaps 10 to 12 million years old.

The Caverns were discovered on March 27, 1960 by four men (Orion Knox, Al Brandy, Preston Knodell, and Joe Cantu) from the St. Mary's Grotto in San Antonio, TX. Orion led the trip and was first into the caverns' large section. Their first trip led to the discovery of over 2 miles of cave passages.

The land owners asked both the Texas Park System and the National Park Service if either group wanted to develop the caverns. Neither group had the funding to do so, and the owners decided to do it themselves. Orion dropped out of college to assist, and with the help of Jack Burch they were able to commercialize the first half-mile. The park opened to the public on July 3rd, 1964.

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