CAVE
OF THE WINDS
Cave of the Winds is located in Williams
Canyon, a little north of the town of Manitou Springs in the Front Range (Rocky
Mountains) of central Colorado, USA.
The cave is principally developed in the
Manitou Limestone, a Lower Ordovician unit consiting of limestones and
dolomitic limestones and dolostones. The
uppermost portions of the cave extends into the overlying Williams Canyon
Formation (?Devonian to Mississippian) and even the basal Leadville Limestone
(a.k.a. Hardcrabble Limestone; a.k.a. Madison Limestone) of Mississippian age.
The area’s stratigraphy is well exposed in
the walls of Williams Canyon, where the cave is located. Precambrian Pikes Peak Granite (1.08 to 1.09
Ga) is the local basement rock, with Upper Cambrian Sawatch Sandstone resting
nonconformably above. The Peerless
Formation (Upper Cambrian), Manitou Limestone, Williams Canyon Formation,
Leadville Limestone, and Fountain Formation (Pennsylvanian-Permian) occur above
that. The sedimentary rocks in Williams
Canyon are somewhat structurally tilted.
Published studies have shown that Cave of
the Winds was dissolved out principally during the Late Miocene to Early
Pliocene (~7 to 4 Ma). Cave sediments in
Cave of the Winds date from the Early Pliocene to Early Pleistocene (~4.3 to
1.5 Ma). The cave itself formed in the
mixing zone between deep groundwaters having high carbon dioxide (CO2)
content and shallow groundwaters having low carbon dioxide content. The resulting mixing zone consisted of
high-aggressivity groundwater. Since the
Pleistocene, the subsurface elevation of the mixing zone has lowered and moved
downdip, toward the town of Manitou Springs.
Over 3 kilometers of passages have been
mapped at Cave of the Winds. The
public-access “Discovery Tour” goes through travertine speleothem-rich sections
having dripstone (stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws), draperies, flowstone,
coralloids (knobstone; cave popcorn, helictites, and anthodites. Travertine is a crystalline-textured,
chemical sedimentary rock composed of calcite (CaCO3 - calcium
carbonate).
Cave of the Winds photos
Info. synthesized from:
Luiszer (1999) - Geological Society of
America Field Guide 1: 61-70.
Davis & Luiszer (2009) - Caves and
Karst of the USA. pp. 242-243, 245.
Hose (2009) - Select field guides to cave
and karst lands of the United States.
Karst Waters Institute Special Publication 15: 113-118.
Luiszer (2009) - Select field guides to
cave and karst lands of the United States.
Karst Waters Institute Special Publication 15: 119-132.