Geology sign near entrance to Lava River Cave.
Marker Name: What’s Flowing On?
Marker Text: Lava tubes breathe. Caves inhale or exhale as the barometric pressure changes. So, fresh air is always flowing through the cave. What else flows? Sand trickles in and out. Large mammals come and go. And this is home to bats, bugs and other creatures.
Clues about flowing lava are frozen on every surface. How full was the tube at different times? Can you find melted ceilings, a tube on top of a tube and the last ripples on the floor? Look for the Sand Garden with castle-like mounds. No river of water passed through this cave. Sand from the surface drips in grain by grain through tiny cracks in the ceiling and leaves, the same way, through the floor.
We find lava tubes when their roofs cave in. The roof becomes a floor, an entrance and a unique environment. Plants that cannot grow on the surface a few feet above flourish in the moist, narrow corridor created by the collapse.
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