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| Spook Cave, in 1998 | ||||||||
| < Back to Iowa | ||||||||
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I went for a drive around Iowa when I worked there in 1998, and stumbled
on "Spook Cave", near Lansing. It was discovered in the 1950's by
a Gerakd Mielke. He noticed that a spring made gurgling sounds
behind a outcropping of exposed rock, so be blasted a hole, and
discovered the cave complex. He built a dam at the opening of the cave, and turned the cave into an underground boat tour. It claims to be the largest underground boat tour in the US. |
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Its not for the claustrophobic: some of the clearances are quite low,
forcing everyone to lean back and duck...
The boats are powered by trolling motors, to keep harmful exhausts out of the cave. |
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The cave was cut by running water, which dissolved limestone and sandstone
deposits. Here and there along the cave's walls are fossils of various types... |
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The guide spent quite a bit of time explaining how various structures
formed... this one, the Chandelier, formed from water seeping through a
crack in the rock structure above evaporated, leaving the dissolved
material behind.
When I took a snap of some "Soda Staws" - hollow tubes that drip water - I noticed a bat hiding in a cubby hole... |
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These type of structures grow at the rate of about an inch every 100
years...
The painted wall marked the turn around point... a fitting end to a great time in the innards of the ground. |
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Added to the site in: 1999 |
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