WorldWide Drilling Resource

44 DECEMBER 2016 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® Calaveras County’s Mystery Cave by Harry W. Short, Engineering Geologist A trip to historic Calaveras County, California, is not complete without vis- iting Moaning Cavern on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains at Vallecito. The cavern is accessible north of Sonora through Columbia State Park on Highway 4 from Angeles Camp to Vallecito. Moaning Cavern Road, about two miles south of Vallecito, leads to the cavern entrance atop a steep hillside overlooking Coyote and Wades Creeks. The first visitor(s) to Moaning Cavern were there about 12,000 years ago. His/her bones, em- bedded in thick deposits of calcium carbonate, have been found on the floor of the Main Room. Perhaps those persons fell to their deaths through a fracture or joint in the bedrock. Another per- sistent theory is Indian war parties disposed of enemy bodies by dropping them through a joint in the bedrock. Other rumors allude to a still undiscovered secret passage which allowed easy access to the cavern. The cavern was named by early explorers who claimed to have heard a "moaning" sound emanating from the cavern entrance. This sound was thought to have been caused by air rushing from the mouth of the cavern, or water dropping to the cavern floor. No one has determined the source of the peculiar sound. Many believe the story was a tale made up by the early explorers, and others think they may have been in a different cavern. Some believe the sound stopped because the acoustics changed after a 100-foot steel staircase [shown in the top photo] was installed. An underground tour to the bottom of this fabulous vertical cavern takes you millions of years into the geologic past. Sediments deposited in an inland sea near the end of the Late Paleozoic Era became the Calaveras Formation in which Moaning Cavern developed. Geologists have been unable to determine an accurate geologic age for this formation because modification during periods of mountain building apparently eliminated any physical evidence of fossils. Other interesting features of Moaning Cavern are found below the Main Room. An opening near the Igloo leads to two small rooms - the Mud Flats and Lake Room. The Lake Room contains flowstone (cave deposit formed by flowing water) deposits of calcium carbonate, soda straws, helictites, stalactites, and a small brimstone pool. Addison Carley spent his life trying to unravel the mystery of the lower rooms re- ported by Dr. Trask (California’s first state geologist) and the French explorers. He never found them. Did the early explorers really hear a "moaning" sound coming from the cavern? Why was the prominence of the massive Igloo never mentioned by the early cave explorers? Were they in the same cavern? Were human remains dropped into the cavern by marauding tribes or brought in through secret passages? Will the truth ever be found?? Harry In memory of Harry Short. This will be his last article. Contact: michele@worldwidedrillingresource.com Note from Harry’s wife Delores: I believe this would have been Harry's favorite article. I found a copy of the paper California Geology , published in September 1975, by the State of California, The Resources Agency, Department of Conservation, California Division of Mines and Geology which has an article written by Harry about the Moaning Cave [at right]. Harry and I spent every weekend during the summer of 1965, while living in Modesto, mapping Moaning Cave. He was working for the Department of Water Resource, State of California, on the California Aqueduct project at the time. I never thought we could sleep on the ground by night and crawl through all those little spaces in that cave by day, although it was mostly dark in the cave ex- cept where there were electric lights for the tourists. Of course, we were young and skinny in those days!! It was a wonderful experience and we had a lot of fun and met a lot of interesting spelunkers. Delores Short in caving clothing. About 27 feet high, the Igloo is the largest speleothem in Moaning Cave’s Main Room. Photos by Harry Short circa 1965. Lest we forget...