Contents

Imagination Room

Cave Map Showing the Location of the Imagination Room (Source: Oregon Caves Image Library)

The Imagination Room displays several distinctive formations, such as inactive moonmilk, helictites, and scallops. The room also contains a water collection bucket used to study the rate of waterflow in the cave.

Geology

Cave Formations

The Imagination Room gets its name from the numerous formations on the walls that create fanciful shapes. Many of these shapes are created by calcite covering wood, usually roots, which are called rootcicles. In this room, these rootcicles are covered with moonmilk (Roth 479).Rootcicle Covered With Moonmilk in the Imagination Room (Source: Oregon Caves Image Library)

Moonmilk is a soft, white calcite deposit that frequently contains bacterial species and is the consistency of cream cheese when wet and powdered milk when dry (Bates and Jackson 432; Shopov 636). All or most of the moonmilk in this room has now hardened into a limestone crust (Roth 22).

 

 

 

 

 

A helictite can also be seen on the slope just below the platform. (Roth 24). It is a curved, twig-like cave deposit that grows from water emerging from a nearly microscopic central canal (Bates and Jackson 303; Davis 549).

A Helictite Seen in the Imagination Room Below the Platform (Source: Oregon Caves Image Library)

One of the best places to see scallops occurs in the Imagination Room. Scallops are small hollows formed on the surface of the marble by turbulent water. They can be used to predict the direction and velocity of past water flow (Lundberg 316).

Scallops on the Ceiling Indicate Past Water Flow (Source: Oregon Caves Image Library)

Water Flow

At the bottom of the Imagination Room, there is a large water collection bucket which is a part of an ongoing study between the cave environment and the forest above. Four buckets collect water as it trickles down through the cave, recording the amount of water that enters. Another collection bucket is in the King and Queens Throne Room near the Spiral Stairs. The study has been ongoing since 1999 (McCall 1; Roth 22).

 

References

Bates, Robert and Julia Jackson, ed. Glossary of Geology. Alexandria: American Geological Institute, 1987.  303, 432.

Davis, Donald. “Speleothems: Helictites and Related Forms.” Encyclopedia of Caves. David Culver and William White, ed. Burlington: Elsevier Academic Press, 2005. 549-554.
Lundberg, Joyce. “Karren.” Encyclopedia of Caves. David Culver and William White, ed. Burlington: Elsevier Academic Press, 2005. 315-321.

McCall, William. “Infiltration and Fire Suppression: Preliminary analysis of tipping bucket data to determine whether fire management activities have a measurable effect on infiltration into the cave.” Cave Junction: Oregon Caves National Monument, National Park Service, 2008. 1-9. 

Roth, John. “Interpretive Manual for the Monument’s Showcave”. Cave Junction: Oregon Caves National Monument, 2011. 22-24.

Shopov, Yavor. “Sediment: Biogenic.” Encyclopedia of Caves and Karst Science. John Gunn, ed. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004. 636.