 |
| Lehman Cave is a solution cave (not an erosional cave). The cavernous chambers of a solution cave formed by the gradual dissolution of the calcite in the marble below the water table. Solution caves, like Carlsbad Caverns and Lehman Cave, typically have irregularly shaped chambers that follow fractures, bedding plains, and week zones in the bedrock. Erosional caves (like Mammoth Cave) typically have long, sinuous passages shaped by water flowing in passages at or above the water table. The cavern has about 10,000 feet irregular-shaped passages. They all occur within the Pole Canyon Limestone Member of Middle Cambrian age (about 525 million years old). However, the cavern itself probably formed only within the last several million years, long after the Snake Range had already been uplifted and a natural groundwater flow system became established to dissolve out minerals along fractures in the limestone (or marble). The speleothems could only form after the ground water table receded, allowing the cavern to fill with air. |
 |
 |