Geo 1095: February 18, Day 779: Not All THAT Grand

Here we see Dana for scale with the "Grand Column" in Oregon Caves. As I commented yesterday, it's not all that grand, but a very nice example of this kind of speleothem, nevertheless. As I didn't mention yesterday, you can see the neck, the tight point, where the stalactite and stalagmite met, right about the same height as Dana's knees. Stalactites tend to be narrower and grow faster vertically, than stalagmites, which tend to be stumpier and grow vertically less quickly. So necks on columns such as this tend to be closer to the floor of a cavern than to the ceiling. (Yes the pose is a bit odd, but I asked her to look away from the camera so she wasn't blinded by the flash. Despite the fact we were a group of ~25, you see very few other people in this set of photos, for the same reason: I tried to shoot away from others to prevent blinding them.)

Photo unmodified. May 9, 2013. FlashEarth Location. (Since we're underground, I have only a vague idea where this is with respect to the surface.)