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| Indiana Caverns | |
|---|---|
 A portion of Indiana Caverns's boat ride | |
  Location in Indiana  Location in the United States | |
| Location | Harrison County, Indiana |
| Nearest city | Corydon |
| Coordinates | 38°10′58″N86°09′00″W / 38.182812°N 86.149974°W |
| Owned by | Private |
| Website | indianacaverns |
Indiana Caverns is part of the Binkley Cave system near Corydon, Indiana.
In 1918, an 81.5 acre farm less than a mile south of Corydon was purchased by Arvel H. Miles. A sinkhole entrance to Binkley Cave opened on the farm at some point prior to a set of explorations in the 1930s. In 1944, the farm was purchased by Harvey Binkley, for whom the cave is now named. Most of the exploration of the cave has been done by the Indiana Speleological Survey.
In 2010, Shane Myles and Tim Pride discovered an area now called Blowing Hole Boulevard. Blowing Hole Boulevard's west end is an eighty-five-foot tall room called Big Bone Mountain, named for several sets of animal bones found in the room. Subsequent excavations by the Indiana State Museum have determined the bones to originate from Pleistocene Ice Age animals.
In 2012, the Indiana Speleological Survey began investigating a possible connection between Binkley Cave and nearby Blowing Hole Cave. A passageway thought to connect the two caves was partially blocked by breakdown rock, but dye testing and smoke bombs showed an air and water exchange between the two caves. Digging on both sides allowed cavers in both caves to shake hands through the rocks. This disproved the idea that the two caves were separate; they are now proved to be one cave. This connection made the Binkley Cave system thirty-five miles long - solidifying it, perhaps permanently, as the longest cave in Indiana. [1] [2]
Development of Indiana Caverns began on June 1, 2012; the cave opened to the public on June 15, 2013.
The Indiana Speleological Survey continues to explore Binkley Cave. Through the use of color dye in waterways, two local springs have been identified as the final destination of two yet unexplored cave passageways. Exploration of these waterways would add several miles to the cave's explored length. [3] As of the end of 2015, the surveyed cave length was 42.57 miles with the potential for at least ten miles to be discovered in the distant future.
The Indiana Caverns portion of Binkley Cave is almost entirely located in St. Louis Limestone, which is a thinly bedded limestone of Mississippian origin. St. Louis Limestone includes beds of chert and shale (the chert is showcased on the tour). Brachiopods and coral are apparent in the rock on the show tour. [4]
Binkley Cave is a solutional cave formed from the dissolution of limestone by underground streams containing carbonic acid. The water takes the path of least resistance by running along the faults, fractures, and bedding planes of the limestone. The thinly bedded St. Louis limestone can be quite fissile, meaning it is weakest along straight planes. This weakness along the planes helped lead to breakdown events after the cave's initial formation, leaving behind flat surfaces on the ceilings and walls. [5]
Calcium bicarbonate is carried into the cave by drips of water. When the slightly pressurized calcium bicarbonate hits the air of the cave, the carbon dioxide is released, and the calcium carbonate precipitates out of the water. The calcium carbonate, in the form of the mineral calcite, a solid, crystallizes onto the bottoms and sides of existing stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, and sheets of flowstone to grow the formations over time. Other minerals are brought into the cave by flowing of water to create white, red, tan, and gray colors on the formations and walls. [6]
St. Louis Limestone is primarily made of calcite, but is also known to contain magnesium sulfate, manganese dioxide, ferric oxide, gypsum, dolomite, and aragonite. On the show tour, deposits of calcite, manganese dioxide, and ferric oxide are apparent. The top portion of the St. Louis Limestone layer through which the tour goes includes the Lost River Chert Bed, a layer of rock containing sheets of chert, a siliceous rock, which is also apparent on the cave tour. [7]
Because of the presence of Pleistocene fauna bones in the cave, it is believed that the top of the Big Bone Mountain room once featured a large natural opening that both opened and closed during the Pleistocene era. Carbon dating on three sets of bones in the cave indicate that the animals entered the cave circa 38,000 years BP, which would have been 17,000 years prior to the last glacial maximum. During the last glacial maximum, the glaciers of the Wisconsin glaciation extended past present-day Indianapolis. The earlier Illinoian glaciation extended glaciers all the way to the Ohio River, but stopped short of the Crawford Upland as the Mitchell Plain, in which Indiana Caverns sits. Almost all of Indiana's caves exist along a thin area between Bloomington and Harrison County, which was never glaciated. This information is based on private correspondence between Indiana Caverns and the Indiana State Museum.
The species identified by the Indiana State Museum so far are:
There are also bones of unknown species from a bird, a frog, a fish, and a shrew.
Other show caves in Indiana
A stalactite is a mineral formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves, hot springs, or man-made structures such as bridges and mines. Any material that is soluble and that can be deposited as a colloid, or is in suspension, or is capable of being melted, may form a stalactite. Stalactites may be composed of lava, minerals, mud, peat, pitch, sand, sinter, and amberat. A stalactite is not necessarily a speleothem, though speleothems are the most common form of stalactite because of the abundance of limestone caves.
A stalagmite is a type of rock formation that rises from the floor of a cave due to the accumulation of material deposited on the floor from ceiling drippings. Stalagmites are typically composed of calcium carbonate, but may consist of lava, mud, peat, pitch, sand, sinter, and amberat.
Travertine is a form of terrestrial limestone deposited around mineral springs, especially hot springs. It often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, cream-colored, and rusty varieties. It is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot spring or in a limestone cave. In the latter, it can form stalactites, stalagmites, and other speleothems. It is frequently used in Italy and elsewhere as a building material. Similar deposits formed from ambient-temperature water are known as tufa.
Blanchard Springs Caverns is a cave system located in the Ozark–St. Francis National Forest in Stone County in northern Arkansas, USA, 2 miles (3.2 km) off Highway 14 a short distance north of Mountain View. It is the only tourist cave owned by the United States Forest Service and the only one owned by the federal government outside the National Park System. Blanchard Springs Caverns is a three-level cave system, all of which can be viewed on guided tours.
A speleothem is a geological formation made by mineral deposits that accumulate over time in natural caves. Speleothems most commonly form in calcareous caves due to carbonate dissolution reactions. They can take a variety of forms, depending on their depositional history and environment. Their chemical composition, gradual growth, and preservation in caves make them useful paleoclimatic proxies.
Inner Space Cavern is a karst cave located in Georgetown, Texas. The cavern was formed by water passing through Edwards limestone. The cavern is estimated to be around 20–25 million years old but were only open to the surface since the late Pleistocene period 14,000–45,000 years ago.
Jewel Cave National Monument contains Jewel Cave, currently the fifth longest cave in the world and second longest cave in the United States, with 220.01 miles (354.07 km) of mapped passageways as of May 2024. It is located approximately 13 miles (21 km) west of the town of Custer in Black Hills of South Dakota. It became a national monument in 1908.
Dolomite (also known as dolomite rock, dolostone or dolomitic rock) is a sedimentary carbonate rock that contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite, CaMg(CO3)2. It occurs widely, often in association with limestone and evaporites, though it is less abundant than limestone and rare in Cenozoic rock beds (beds less than about 66 million years in age). One of the first geologists to distinguish dolomite from limestone was Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu, a French mineralogist and geologist after whom it is named. He recognized and described the distinct characteristics of dolomite in the late 18th century, differentiating it from limestone.
The Mitchell Caverns, within the Mitchell Caverns Natural Preserve, are three solution limestone caves, only two of which are open to the public, located on the east side of the Providence Mountains at an elevation of 4,300 feet (1,300 m), within the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area. The caverns are located in the Mojave Desert, in San Bernardino County, California.
Flowstones are sheetlike deposits of calcite or other carbonate minerals, formed where water flows down the walls or along the floors of a cave. They are typically found in "solution caves", in limestone, where they are the most common speleothem. However, they may form in any type of cave where water enters that has picked up dissolved minerals. Flowstones are formed via the degassing of vadose percolation waters.
The Delaware Basin is a geologic depositional and structural basin in West Texas and southern New Mexico, famous for holding large oil fields and for a fossilized reef exposed at the surface. Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park protect part of the basin. It is part of the larger Permian Basin, itself contained within the Mid-Continent oil province.
Harrison Spring is the largest spring in the U.S. state of Indiana. It is located in west-central Harrison County, near the Blue River and just north of White Cloud.
The Wyandotte Caves is a pair of limestone caves located on the Ohio River in Harrison–Crawford State Forest in Crawford County, Indiana, 5 miles (8 km) northeast of Leavenworth and 12 miles (19 km) from Corydon. Wyandotte Caves were designated a National Natural Landmark in 1972, and they are now part of O'Bannon Woods State Park. The cave system is the fifth largest in the state of Indiana, and it is a popular tourist attraction.
A cave pearl is a small, usually spherical, speleothem found in limestone caves. Cave pearls are formed by a concretion of calcium salts that form concentric layers around a nucleus. Exposure to moving water polishes the surface of cave pearls, making them glossy; if exposed to the air, cave pearls can degrade and appear rough.
The Lost River is a river that rises in Vernon Township, Washington County, Indiana, and discharges into the East Fork of the White River in Lost River Township, Martin County, Indiana. The river's unusual hydrology has led to two of its features being named as National Natural Landmarks.
The Castellana Caves are a karst cave system located in the municipality of Castellana Grotte, in the Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia, southern Italy.
The Caves of the Tullybrack and Belmore hills are a collection of caves in southwest County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. The region is also described as the West Fermanagh Scarplands by environmental agencies and shares many similar karst features with the nearby Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark.
A solutional cave, solution cave, or karst cave is a cave usually formed in a soluble rock like limestone (Calcium carbonate CaCO3). It is the most frequently occurring type of cave. It can also form in other rocks, including chalk, dolomite, marble, salt beds, and gypsum.
Calcite crystals form on the surface of quiescent bodies of water, even when the bulk water is not supersaturated with respect to calcium carbonate. The crystals grow, attach to one other and appear to be floating rafts of a white, opaque material. The floating materials have been referred to as calcite rafts or "leopard spots".
Diamond Caverns in Park City, Kentucky was discovered on July 14, 1859. Tours are available year around; closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas. Tours last one hour and is a half mile round trip.
