A Natural Laboratory

Howes Cave Site of National Interest

The Howes Cave quarry has both natural and manmade elements that make it a great destination for anyone interested in rocks and minerals, geology, history, and pre-history, natural resources, and much more. Above, the original entrance to Howes Cave.

The unique geology of the Howes Cave limestone quarry, mine, and caves makes it a natural field laboratory for educators in several fields. Having the site available to educators and their students is a key component of the project, according to Ben Guenther of Decatur, who is coordinating the development's outreach efforts to the educational community. "As stewards of this unique environmental- and ecologically-sensitive area, we can provide educators and researchers with study opportunities unavailable anywhere else," said Guenther. On the site is an century-old, 11-acre underground mine, once used for quarrying limestone for natural cement; two cave systems, about one-half of historic Howes Cave, and Barytes, which stretches northeast for at least two miles; and a 250-acre surface quarry. A hotel built of cut limestone in about 1865 to welcome visitors to Howes Cave stands above the former entrance to that cave. Known as "The Cave House", the long-abandoned building is being restored as a museum and educational center, and will include classrooms for guest lecturers, exhibits, and artifacts. "The quarry is so unique that we have the ability to attract nationally-known experts in several fields," said Guenther. The Howes Cave property provides opportunities to study: stratigraphy, the arrangement of earth's strata, or layers; hydrology, which deals with the properties of water, its distribution, and circulation; paleontology, which studies fossil remains to discover life forms in ancient geological periods; mineralogy, the science dealing with minerals, their properties and ways of distinguishing them;

karst topography, which studies caves and the properties of porous limestone; and tectonics, the study of earth's plate movement, faults, and structure. The high quarry walls of limestone expose two periods of time in the history of an ancient sea, sediments that formed during the Silurian age, about 445 million years ago, and the Devonian time period, about 400 million years ago.

Cobleskill Stone Products Vice President Mike Galasso and project Architect Clemens McGiver study the quarry's unique geological features.

"Since the earliest days of geological studies, the Helderberg Mountains and Schoharie Valley have served as North America's classic field area for the rock layers of those ages," according to Dr. Arthur N. Palmer, a distinguished teaching professor at SUNY Oneonta and one of the nation's leading experts in water resources. "The area is now providing clues to the dates of certain major geological events, such as the onset of the uplift of he Appalachian Mountains." Dr. Palmer said the underground drainage pattern responsible for the formation of caves is unique in this country because of the effect that continental glaciers have played on controlling and modifying it. A low-angle thrust fault resulting from a shift in the earth's tectonic plates runs across the face of the quarry, and a nearly horizontal fault extends through the mine. Unusual minerals such as barite, aragonite, and strontianite are also found, according to Dr. Palmer. "Roadcuts and natural outcrops give us many views of the same rocks, but this is the only place in the northeast where these rock features, dissolution products, structures, fossils, and minerals are so clearly visible and where they occur all together in association with each other. "In scientific value, this is a site of a national importance," said Dr. Palmer. Dr. Palmer is one of many educators from around the region to provide letters of support for the project, which is being developed by a non-profit corporation, The Cave House Museum of Mining and Geology. In addition to the site's unique geologic aspects, "the remains of the cement-processing facilities provide a fascinating glimpse of the industrial applications of geology," another supporter wrote. When the project is complete several years from now visitors will have the opportunity to tour the caves, the mine, the surface quarry, and a working crushed stone operation.