Tantanoola Caves Earthcache (South Australia) EarthCache
Tantanoola Caves Earthcache (South Australia)
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An Earthcache in South Australia.
Tantanoola Cave, named after the nearby town, is more or less a single big chamber, about 30m across and 8m high. It is smaller than other show caves in South Australia, but it is famous for numerous beautiful speleothems. It contains numerous of the rare helictites.
This cave is located inside Up and Down Rock, an ancient marine cliff towering over the highway. The Miocene bryozoan dolomite which underlies the Gambier limestone of the area was once uplifted along the Tartwaup fault-line. During the Pleistocene the sea shore was located right at this dolomite. The sea worked on the rocks and formed a cliff by continually destroying the rocks at the bottom of the cliff with the energy of the waves. This work results in sea caves, overhangs and a cliff face which is always more or less vertical. But then the sea receded, either because the sea level lowered or because the land was uplifted.
Today the cliff is far from the sea, but shells, pebbles and seal bones left behind by the ocean can be found inside Tantanoola Cave, and witness the marine history. The pounding waves of the sea breached entrances to the cave, still it is a karst cave, not a sea cave! The marine sediments entered first through cracks and solution tubes until a larger breach occurred. The material formed a bar, which blocked the entrance off again. Later the speleothems appeared, covering some of the marine deposits and old entrances.
As Tantanoola Cave is rather small, and only a single chamber, there are no narrow passages. So in 1983 the entrance of the cave was lowered and the steps of the path removed. This made it Australia's first wheelchair access cave.
The Tantanoola Caves showroom is open 7 days a week(closed Xmas Day) from 10am to 3pm (SA Australia Time). You don't need to enter the caves to complete the Earthcache. But you will need to enter the showroom.
To log this EarthCache, you must do the following and email us the results. You can go ahead and log your find, (ie. you don't need to wait for permission) but if we don’t think you have honestly completed the required tasks we will delete your log (after emailing you first of course):
At the cache cords find the answers to the following question.
1).The Ambundance of "what" in the water helped change the limestone to dolomite? Email me the answers.
2)Take a photo of yourself, and GPS at GZ. Please post the photo with your online log. Please dont email it to me..
Please email me this info, please DO NOT post it with your log.
Just post your photo.
Thanks to Peter Alexander for his permission for this Earthcache.
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