Caves contain amazing things
Like a giant cave entrance in the Mojave Desert.
Caves are time capsules
Caves are nature’s museum where things are preserved and sometimes last for vast periods of time. Where animals have the time to evolve into new California species that may exist in only a single cave. Where, over vast lengths of time, minerals can grow to great beauty and fragility. The dry upper levels of some caves are remarkably static. Not much changes. A little water may drip, and a bat may fly by. Under these conditions, ancient ceramics, bones millions of years old and pollen from a forest that has long since vanished can be found in these high and dry sections of caves.
Caves contain innumerable things of value to California – rare animals, aquifers of cold water, clues to our past, the remains of ancient animals, and Mother Nature’s best mosquito eater, bats.
Caves create difficult and unusual habitats that provide homes to some of the most unique, strange and rare animals found in the state. Water makes caves and caves store water. In watersheds such as the Kaweah River in Tulare County, during the summer and fall, most of the water in the river flowed through a cave on its way downstream. Caves in Shasta County were the scene of multiple paleontology excavations in the late 1800s and early 1900s that found a large number of new and extinct species, changing our understanding of the natural history of western North America. Phoebe Hearst, mother of William Randolf Hearst, helped to fund some of this work. Look below for more of the things that make California caves special.
