CARLSBAD CAVERNS NATIONAL PARK

national park in southeastern New Mexico, U.S., established in 1923 as a national monument and designated a national park in 1930. Beneath the park, which is 73 square miles (189 square km) in area, winds a labyrinth of underground chambers, including one of the largest ever discovered. The total length of the rooms and passages is still unknown, but the explored part of the main cavern is approximately 30 miles (48 km) long, of which 3 miles (5 km) are open to visitors. Of the three major levels, the deepest is 1,024 feet (312 m) below the ground. Elevators take visitors to the 750-foot (230-metre) level. The second level is at 829 feet (253 m). The caverns have formed as limestone has been dissolved by groundwater, and many of the rooms so created have stalactites and stalagmites of calcite. The roof of the Papoose Room, for instance, supports gleaming draperylike formations. The Big Room is about 2,000 feet (610 m) long and 1,100 feet (335 m) wide and has a ceiling that arches 255 feet (78 m) above the floor. Found there are the Giant Dome, a stalagmite 62 feet (19 m) tall, and the Twin Domes, only slightly smaller, superbly proportioned, and delicately fluted. During the summer a colony of several million bats inhabits a part of the caverns known as Bat Cave. The Carlsbad Caverns' surface area is a sanctuary for native plants and wildlife.