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FLowstone floor over breakdown

PostPosted: Sep 9, 2012 8:44 pm
by GroundquestMSA
I'll try to describe this passage, and you can tell me what you know (or guess) about its formation. The passage is big, but has few of the large breakdown blocks usually found in tall cave. Much of the floor is smooth flowstone. There are a few spots though, where the flowstone sounds hollow, and two where it is collapsed to reveal the expected breakdown is beneath the current floor. Climbing into these collapses allows one to navigate through a scary jumble of huge blocks for short distances. How does something like this form? My own purely uneducated guess is that washed in sediment would have to have covered the breakdown to some extent to allow the deposition of flowstone. This passage is dry, though the cave has a lower stream passage.

Re: FLowstone floor over breakdown

PostPosted: Sep 9, 2012 9:07 pm
by Chads93GT
mmmm breakdown with clay......calcite covers it.........clay gets washed away, leaving hollow calcite. That is my uneducated logical explanation anyway. Sounds cool ;)