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Carlsbad Caverns: Sulfuric Acid Caves and the Nightly Bat Flight
Carlsbad Caverns National Park in the New Mexico desert hides one of the largest cave systems on the continent, carved not by ordinary rainwater but by sulfuric acid rising from deep oil deposits. We walk the Natural Entrance Trail 750 feet down into the Big Room, a chamber nearly 4,000 feet long, explore the Permian-age Capitan Reef that became the limestone itself, and head to the amphitheater at dusk to watch hundreds of thousands of Brazilian free-tailed bats spiral out for their nightly feeding flight -- plus the story of Jim White, the cowboy explorer who fought to protect the caves…
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