The Impact of Visitors on the Caves

Many people come to Jenolan, enjoy looking at the caves and return home without giving a second thought to what impact they had on the caves they have seen. As people grow more environmentally conscious though, more and more people want to know how they affect the caves and in fact, are they damaging them in anyway.

The answer is that whenever you enter any environment, you are going to affect it in some way. Fortunately at Jenolan it is understood that we have the ability to destroy our environment, but we also have the ability to protect it.

The temperature of the caves is about 17 degrees Celsius. A healthy human being though is about 37 degrees. It follows that when you take a group of people through a cave it will heat the air. At the same time that the group is warming the air around them, they are losing lint from their clothes, shedding hair and possibly stirring up dust. The warm air rises and carries with it the "pollutants" that are being shed by the group. The pollutants are carried upward and, as the air cools, they settle upon the cave formations. This eventually leads to the formations being covered in a layer of lint and dust.

In the 1970's the Orient Cave was closed and steam cleaned to remove this buildup. The photo at left shows an example of how the formations had become soiled. Steam cleaning was used for only a short time as it was very labour intensive and there was concern about the effect it had upon the cave fauna, principally small insects.

These days a variety of techniques are used to clean the caves. If the cave formations are dry then it is sometimes possible to use a vacuum cleaner. A lot of the time the formations are damp causing the pollutants to stick. When this happens it is necessary to use water cleaning. In this procedure water can be sprayed onto the formation witha variable jet. Careful use ensures that the formation is not destroyed by the process. Water that is used is drawn from the underground river to ensure it is very close in chemical composition to the water that is already on the formation.

If the caves are not regularly cleaned there is the risk that the water which formed the stalactites will continue to drop onto the formations and flow over the pollutants. When this happens a small amount of calcite crystal is deposited. This acts like a glue, sealing the pollutants to the surface, so that no amount of cleaning will remove them.

Visiting scientists frequently conduct experiments to better understand what impact people have upon the caves. The Trust that administers the caves also employs a person to conduct research as well. In this way we are learning more about how people can see the caves without destroying them. Knowledge gained at Jenolan can then be applied to help manage other caves around the world.