The aragonite garden
White coral-like clusters on the ceiling.
Jojo, en:Jojo_1, pl:Jojo — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jojo, en:Jojo_1, pl:Jojo — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jojo, en:Jojo_1, pl:Jojo — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jojo, en:Jojo_1, pl:Jojo — CC BY-SA 3.0
Familiar caves are built by dripping, so formations grow top to bottom; aragonite crystallises out of water in fissures and grows in every direction — the result looking sprouted like a plant rather than hanging.
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One of three aragonite caves in the world open to visitors: Ochtiná is small — its open route only three hundred metres — but a UNESCO site for one reason: its walls and ceilings are covered in white aragonite forms, needles, spirals, shrubs and crystal flowers growing in every direction without regard for gravity, because they form from groundwater rather than dripping. Its best-known formations are the Milky Way Hall and the aragonite garden — white clusters resembling coral or suspended snow, some of them a hundred and twenty thousand years old. It was found by accident during mining work in 1954 and opened in 1972. Its smallness is an advantage: the tour lasts forty minutes without punishing stairs, so it suits anyone unequal to the big Tatra caves. But it is remote — ninety minutes south of Poprad — and usually combined with the nearby Dobšiná ice cave or Krásna Hôrka castle in one day.
White coral-like clusters on the ceiling.
The oldest formations, scientifically dated.
Ochtiná, Slovakia