After shadowing tours and reading material for a couple of weeks today I began to feel ready to conduct a tour on my own. How I want to present this amazingly still growing "active cave" has been brewing in my head ever since they told me I'd be giving tours. I know the only real issue I may have is when it comes to timing. The allure of covering all the fascinating details is very strong. In caverns that began to form nearly a million years ago you can find evidence of an ancient ocean that predates any (as of yet known) land-based ecosystems. That was 400 million years ago. You can see fossils of shelled Cephalopods and other life that flourished around ancient coral reefs. And then there's all the chemistry, geology, history of discovery, cave culture nomenclature, learning the nature of the elements and how they combine, the Collembola, luminescence and the list goes on and on... My brain is happy.
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