New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

A variety of carbonate and sulfate speleothems have formed in Guadalupe caves from dripping, flowing, seeping, pooling, and condensing water. Examples of these are stalactites,
stalagmites, columns, draperies, flowstone, coral pipes, coralloids, helictites, shields, cave pearls, brimstone dams, shelfstone, baldachino canopies, rims, frostwork anthodites, moonmilk, selenite needles, cave cotton, and cave rope. Evaporation and carbon dioxide loss have been prime factors in the deposition of the magnesium-carbonate minerals, hydromagnesite, huntite, and dolomite, and in the formation of certain speleothems such as moonmilk and popcorn. Native sulfur and endellite deposits in the caves and the pronounced condensation-corrosion of speleothems are the result of the peculiar H2S-0O2, sulfuric-acid speleogenetic origin of Guadalupe caves.

Guadalupe speleothems are famous for their immensity, profuseness, and beauty. Size and profuseness result from: (a) a sulfuric-acid mode of cave dissolution created huge chambers in which speleothems could grow large; (b) the caves are very old and, therefore, there has been sufficient time for speleothems to grow; (c) wet climatic episodes earlier in the Pleistocene provided the moisture necessary for speleothem growth; and (d) speleothem-depositing solutions easily entered the underground through jointed limestone uncapped by impermeable strata.