Mammoth Cave National Park

Mammoth Cave National Park
	The "Rotundensaal" in the "Mammoth Cave"
Location:	Kentucky , United States
Next city:	Louisville (Kentucky)
Surface:	218.58 km²
Founding:	July 1, 1941
Visitors:	533.206 (2018)
Address:	Mammoth Cave National Park
	Cave formation in "Violet City"
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The American Mammoth Cave National Park is a national park in Central Kentucky . The Mammut Cave is the largest known cave in the world with a mapped extent of around 652 km . The park was established on July 1, 1941. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on October 27, 1981 and a Biosphere Reserve on September 26, 1990 .

The park covers an area of approximately 21,400 hectares, most of which is in Edmonson County , smaller parts in Barren County and Hart County . The Green River and Nolin River flow in the park, which flows into the Green River directly outside the park.

Geology and fauna

The region consists of a thick limestone layer overlaid by a layer of sandstone . The cave was an important supplier of saltpetre , which was used to make gunpowder , especially during the British-American War of 1812 .

The “causers” of the saltpetre were the excretions of bats , whose large colonies “provided” for this product for thousands of years ( bat guano ). According to a report from 1810, the walls of the cave were "black with bats" - today only small populations are observed.

The river Styx flows through the national park underground.

The caves of the national park are traversed by numerous underground watercourses. The largest river is the River Styx .

history

The history of people in relation to Mammoth Cave goes back over 6000 years. From this time finds of an Indian culture from the Archaic period have been found. One unproven guess is that the first European to discover Mammoth Cave was either John Houchin or his brother Francis Houchin while hunting for a bear in 1797.

In 1838 Franklin Gorin bought the cave and operated it as a tourist attraction. The caves are first recorded by the slave Stephen Bishop , who explored the cave between 1840 and 1850 and recorded the first plans of the cave and names of some formations. Mammoth Cave was so well known during the 19th century that it became an international sensation. A railway line was also built, the Mammoth Cave Railroad , which brought visitors to the cave. Since the area around the cave was not suitable for agriculture, the owners of the surrounding caves began a competition for tourists, this was known as the Kentucky Cave Wars . The caves were not professionally measured by Max Kämper until 1908 .

The first research began in the late 1950s by Patty Jo Watson of Washington University in St. Louis. He determined the relative content of plants and meat in the diet of the culture over a period of several thousand years. In addition, many human remains and artifacts from this period were found in the caves.

Private individuals formed the Mammoth Cave National Park Association in 1926 to protect the area. The park was then dedicated as a National Monument on May 25, 1926. Donations were used to buy farms in the area. In the following times, many cave explorations followed such as exploring the Flint Ridge System, which includes the Crystal Cave , the Onyx Cave and the Salts Cave . In total, the Flint Ridge cave systems are 139.2 km long. Other massive cave systems within short distances of Mammoth Cave have been discovered and explored: the Fisher Ridge Cave System and the Martin Ridge Cave System.

The area was declared a World Heritage Site on October 27, 1981, and an International Biosphere Reserve on September 26, 1990. In sleep research, the cave is known for the Mammoth Cave experiment by Nathaniel Kleitman .

Web links

Commons : Mammoth Cave National Park - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

National Park Service: Mammoth Cave National Park (official site; English)
US National Parks Net: Mammoth Cave National Park (English)
Entry on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website ( English and French ).

Individual evidence

↑ Michael Poucher, Bob Gulden: World longest caves. In: Geo2 Committee on Long and Deep Caves. National Speleological Society (NSS), April 7, 2019, accessed July 1, 2019 .
↑ Bernd Kliebhan: Max Kämper and his measurement of the Mammoth Cave in 1908 . In: Association of Austrian cave researchers, Association of German cave and karst researchers eV (Hrsg.): Die Höhle - magazine for karst and cave science . tape 48 , no. 4 , 1997, p. 101–109 ( 1.73 MB PDF [accessed December 3, 2011]).

[NSS-1] Michael Poucher, Bob Gulden: World longest caves. In: Geo2 Committee on Long and Deep Caves. National Speleological Society (NSS), April 7, 2019, accessed July 1, 2019 .

[Kliebhan-2] Bernd Kliebhan: Max Kämper and his measurement of the Mammoth Cave in 1908 . In: Association of Austrian cave researchers, Association of German cave and karst researchers eV (Hrsg.): Die Höhle - magazine for karst and cave science . tape 48 , no. 4 , 1997, p. 101–109 ( 1.73 MB PDF [accessed December 3, 2011]).