Lechuguilla Cave (New Mexico, USA) is one of the most beautiful caves on Earth. Since its discovery in 1986, more than 240 kilometers of cave has been explored with no end in sight. Owing to its geologic setting and unusual process of formation, the cave contains a remarkable diversity of rare minerals and formations, which have helped change our understanding of how caves form and the microbial life they can contain. In this book, the most active explorers of the cave show the features that made it famous and reveal new discoveries in terms of beauty, scale, and science. Through their writing and photography, they take the reader on their journey of preparing for, and exploring, this remarkable cave. They describe how to successfully live and work in the underground, and highlight the challenges that must be overcome to discover and map new passages. An explanation of how the stunning imagery is captured takes the reader along in this visual journey of Discoveries in a Hidden Splendor. Finally, the extraordinary lengths undertaken to conserve Lechuguilla are illustrated, and how such efforts go hand-in-hand with exploration and photography to reveal the intriguing nature of this wonder of the underground.
Max Wisshak is geoscientist at the Senckenberg research institute in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, and a passionate speleologist, cave photographer, and publisher, who runs his own publishing label speleo-photo editions. Lechuguilla Cave (2022) is his third premium coffee-table book on the subjects of and caves and karst, following Inside Mother Earth (2008) and New Zealand Karst (2020). Co-editor Hazel A. Barton is Professor of Biology and Geoscience at the University of Akron, USA, specializing in cave microbiology, a subject field that ties in closely with her involvement in cave exploration.
Hazel A Barton is Professor of Biology and Geoscience at the University of Akron, USA, specialising in cave microbiology, a subject field that ties in closely with her involvement in cave exploration.