Oregon Caves National Monument

Oregon Caves National Monument is a protected area in the south- western part of the U.S. state of Oregon, near the California border. It is designated as a National Monument and is under the management of the National Park Service. It is unusual that large parts of the cave were washed out of Marble, so that the speleothems are faced with an unusual background.

Before the cave entrance a rustic hotel was built in the 1930s, which is regarded as an example of the integration of a building in environment and nature today.

Location

The cave is located in Mount Elijah, in the Siskiyou Mountains, just 30 kilometers north of the California border. The National Monument is from about 1250 to 1800 m above sea level and is on the surface largely from a forest of Douglas fir, Colorado fir, incense cedar Lawson's and with only a few deciduous trees, including Madrona from the kind of arbutus. The park is one of the thickest Oregon Douglas fir with a diameter of about four meters.

In the cave of Cave Creek, which runs through the park area in a small canyon and north-west to the Illinois River and the Rogue River rises flows to the Pacific.

The Cave

The cave owes its existence to the sediments of an ancient sea in the age of the Jurassic period about 200 million years ago. Under the pressure of further layers of sediments and volcanic rocks is limestone formed. Over time, the rock are raised folded and broken. The resulting pressure -formed to the structure of the limestone from the new crystal structure was marble. The forces had gone broke and diverse deep crevices in the rock.

Over millions of years the rock was further raised, the top layers eroded about it and as the marble surface was so close that water and dissolved therein acids were able to penetrate the broken layers, they washed in geologically long periods passages and caves out of the rock.

Speleothems could arise only because the water level fell later to the extent that the cave was dry. Now dribbled groundwater only through the cracks and caves and not only broke the rock, but deposited with every drop tiny amounts of calcite. The calcite formed in the course of time stories that grew slowly. Where the water fell as drops, formed stalactites and stalagmites, where it flowed slowly grew calcite crusts.

The cave is now explored to a depth of 5.5 km, of which the first kilometer for visitors is available. In the cave, particularly many ancient animal skeletons have been found, including a grizzly bear, which was dated with the radiocarbon dating to 50,000 years, which makes him the oldest ever found Grizzly of the United States.

History

The cave was discovered in 1874 by Elijah Davidson, as he followed his dog into a bear in a column in the hunt. 1890 failed the first attempt to provide commercial cave tours, because the area for tourism settled to thin and was too remote. 1907 visited the writer and adventurer Joaquin Miller the cave and reported on what 1909 U.S. President William H. Taft initiated in the year, to put them under protection.

1934, the cave the newly established National Park Service was placed under and within the framework of the New Deal, the access road was by the Civilian Conservation Corps expanded and built a rustic hotel.

Today, the Oregon Caves National Monument by area and visitor numbers is a small park in the U.S. National Park System, the visitors mostly come from the local area and the neighboring states.