• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Stalactites And Stalagmites: What’s The Difference?

August 14, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Ever went caving as a child and were told all about the wonderful structures that form within these epic caverns, only to promptly forget everything the second you saw the sign for the gift shop? Well, wonder no more, as we break down the differences between those pesky cave structures.

Advertisement

Stalactites and stalagmites

The bread and butter of the mineral formations are undoubtedly stalactites and stalagmites. Formed by mineral deposits building up from precipitation within the cave, stalactites are the icicle-shaped formations that hang from the ceilings. Stalagmites are their upward growing partners that form as water is dripped from the roof onto the floor, creating mineral deposits that form from the ground up, explains NOAA.

There are many fun ways to remember which one is which; some suggest that (stalag)mites crawl up your legs and (stalac)tites fall down, or use the “g” in stalagmites to refer to them growing up from the ground, and the “t” in stalactites as the top of the cave.

Speleothem formation

Both stalactites and stalagmites are types of speleothems, derived from the Greek words spelaion meaning “cave” and thema meaning “deposit”, explains the National Park Service. 

Rainwater lands on the ground before seeping into caves via cracks in the rock. Along the way the water picks up carbon dioxide gas, making the water more acidic. This then passes over limestone rocks (sometimes dolomite) dissolving some on the way past. When the water reaches the cave the gas is released, and the calcite is deposited in various forms across the cave drip by drip.

A pink and purple graphic showing stalctites, stalagmites, columns and flowstone all labelled

These cave formations take a long time to build up, sometimes several thousand years.

Image credit: zombiu26/Shutterstock.com

Other formations

While stalactites and stalagmites are referred to as dripstones, because they are formed by dripping water, many other types of cave formations also occur. Columns are created when stalactites and stalagmites join up together, while the bizarre “cave popcorn” is formed when water comes through pores in the rocks, forming rounded bumps that resemble popcorn and in some cases trapping skeletons inside forever. 

Advertisement

In the Eastern United States, a vast expanse of stalactites and stalagmites have formed the world’s biggest musical instrument.

Funky flowstones can also occur when the water travels over the walls in sheets, creating longer layers. These can contain different colored mineral deposits, earning the nickname “cave bacon” due to their streaky appearance. 

Funky deposit that is different streaky colours in a wave.

Don’t eat the forbidden cave bacon!

Image credit: Winning Image Photography/Shutterstock.com

These cave formations take a long time to form, sometimes over millions of years, while others have been painted by Neanderthals and can even help trace ancient wildfires. 

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Wall St set to open flat on fears over slowing economic growth
  2. U.N. concerned at U.S. pushbacks of migrants who may need asylum
  3. Copper Banking adds $9M in funding as digital banks clamor for teen customers
  4. This Is The Best Way To Get A Cat’s Attention According To Science

Source Link: Stalactites And Stalagmites: What’s The Difference?

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Hurricane Melissa Is 2025’s Strongest Storm Yet, With Turbulence So Bad It Saw Off The Hurricane Hunters
  • Fancy Seeing Your Organs In 4D? Pretty Soon, You Might Be Able To
  • First Known Bats To Glow In The Dark In The US Discovered – But Scientists Aren’t Sure Why
  • “You Be Good. I Love You”: How Alex The Parrot Rewrote Our Understanding Of Animal Intelligence
  • What Would You Find If You Drill Down Deep Under Antarctica?
  • This Is The Safest Place To Sit In Your Car
  • Birds, Hats, And Boycotts: The Story Behind Why It’s A Crime To Collect Feathers
  • Ultra-High-Definition TV – Is It Really Worth It? New Study Figures Out If We Can Even See In UHD
  • Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Will Be At Its Closest To The Sun This Week
  • Human Movement Around Earth Over 40 Times Greater Than That Of All Wild Land Animals Combined
  • Rats Filmed Snatching Bats Out Of The Air Mid-Flight In First-Of-Its-Kind Footage
  • Incredible Planetary System Has Two Stars And Three Earth-Sized Planets
  • “Invasive” Iguanas Spared Extinction As It’s Discovered They Arrived Before Humans Did
  • C/2025 A6 (Lemmon): Phenomenal Fleeting Photobomb Creates Spiral Over Brightest Comet
  • Why Are Men Taller Than Women? Weirdly, We Don’t Actually Know
  • First Targeted Treatment For Dangerous Liver Disease Could Come From An Unexpected Source
  • Mushrooms Could Beat Metal For Large-Scale Memory Storage And Processing
  • Greenhouse Gases’ Heat Trapping Ability Hasn’t Saturated As Some Predicted – But Why?
  • Did You Know The World’s Largest Waterfall Is Underwater?
  • Video Game Study Found Out What People Do When The World Ends, And It’s Exactly What You’d Expect
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version