Researchers set up imaging equipment on a path leading to the King's Palace section of Carlsbad Caverns. Photograph by Jennifer Coats. Soon it begins a slow, whirring orbit atop the tripod. More than a century ago, early explorers descended into Carlsbad Caverns with nothing but lanterns casting dim light into the mysterious, tempting depths. They must have been awed by the other-worldly formations—and felt the prickly fear of getting lost in an unknowable darkness.
They could have used something like the guidance these researchers will soon provide: the most precise and complete maps ever made of Carlsbad Caverns National Park , a UNESCO World Heritage site that lures , visitors a year to see the largest readily accessible cave chamber in North America.
By combining many scans at once, we can see, for the first time, the cavern in profile as it snakes down from the surface, expands into large chambers, and contracts into narrow tunnels. From the side, it turns out, Carlsbad Caverns looks not unlike the fictional Starship Enterprise. The Park Service chose the University of Arkansas because of its expertise in such mapping. Malcolm Williamson and his colleagues have used this same technology to document other World Heritage sites, including the Roman Colosseum, the ruins at Machu Picchu, and the tombs and temples of Petra.
But Carlsbad Caverns is their biggest project yet. Formed millions of years ago when acidic water circulating underground dissolved the porous limestone, the chambers and tunnels acquired their spectacular features called speleothems when the water level dropped. Eventually, stalactites dripped from the ceiling and stalagmites formed on the floors.
To capture it all, the researchers needed four trips and 24 days of scanning on four miles of trails. Read More: Bats contribute to the health of our environment, but a devastating disease imperils them.
