Have you ever been on a cave tour and been told not to break off the stalactites because they grow an inch every two hundred years? Then you wonder how exactly scientists came up with that figure?

At the Guest River Gorge this weekend, we were treated to a view of baby stalactites in action. These guys clearly grew faster than average since the little stalactites on the ceiling were already a few inches long and the "cave" in question was a train tunnel built in 1922.

Mark figured that at the rate calcite-laden wader was pushing through the cracks in the vaulted ceiling, the whole thing would start collapsing in about 150 years. I guess we're going to have to keep eating lots of kale if we want to be around to test that hypothesis.

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.

Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.