Sealed Ecosystems What I find interesting is the fact there are places on this planet where that ecosystem has been cut off from the rest of the world and because of this it has developed independently. I am sure some of you have read books or seen movies about places where people found such areas and came across dinosaurs and such. While this was a popular theme, and places were found which were cut off from the earth’s ecosystem, no dinosaurs were found still living, but it is an intriguing thought. This idea of live dinosaurs has not died out completely and some people point to the Loch Ness Monster and claim it actually exists and is a dinosaur. That is yet to be proven as is the sightings of other lake and river monsters which are claimed to exist and be dinosaurs. Recently a cave was found which had its own ecosystem. The cave is known as the Son Doong Cave and it is located in Vietnam. It is believe this cave is probably the largest in the world. The reason the word probably is used, is there are parts of the cave yet to be explored. But they are believed to be huge. When one enters the cave and goes deep enough, they come upon something very unexpected and that is an entire rain forest inside the cave. The forest is located 200 meters below the surface which is about 660 feet. Very few people have made the journey to the rain forest since it is difficult. The cave even has its own weather system. There are rare animals there which are leading safe lives away from humans and predators. A section of the cave has been given a strange name which is, Watch Out For Dinosaurs. None have been seen by the way and the cave section was possibly given this name to increase tourism. Limestone caves can become home to colonies of bacteria who eat the rock which maintains them. These bacteria can, in some instances, form an ecosystem which is totally independent in the cave. As I said other places have incredible ecosystems. Another is in China. It is an enormous sinkhole. What is so amazing about it is not only 630 feet deep, but there are incredible primitive trees growing in it which tower to over 130 feet. In the sinkhole are caves and some scientists think there might be species of animals found down there which are new to us. In case you wonder how this and other sinkholes nearby formed, it was because the acid rain over the years which dissolved the rock below the surface caused the sinkholes. Large sinkholes are known to form the most in China, Mexico, and Papua New Guinea according to a Chinese scientist. The Chinese sinkholes in this area are all connected by underground caves and a river. There is a cave in Romania known as Movile cave. It was only discovered 37 years ago and is unique. It is near the Black Sea coast. What makes it so unique is its groundwater. It is notable because it has a lot of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide in it, but it is low on oxygen. It is believed the cave has had its own ecosystem for about 5.5 million years. The air in the cave is also unique. There is about one hundred times the amount of carbon dioxide in the cave and the amount of oxygen in the cave air is only about one-third that outside. There is ammonia and hydrogen sulfide also in the air with about two percent methane. It doesn’t sound like a place anyone would want to visit without the proper breathing equipment. Snails has been found living in the cave for millions of years. There is an ocean which has been sealed off from the rest of the planet. It is under the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. It is largely unexplored. To think an entire ocean could have been cut off raises the idea of unique life in it. Yet the ocean is hard to get to and this is why it is relatively unexplored. Layers of water were found which had different temperatures. Tides also affect this ocean. Fish and invertebrates have been found to live in this ocean which surprised scientists Lower Kane Cave is located in Bighorn Basin in Wyoming about 81 miles from Yellowstone National Park. The cave is full of microbes which produce sulfuric acid as a waste product. This dissolves limestone. The cave has sulfide-rich springs. There are quite a few caves with this type of geomicrobiology going on. A cave with a similar ecosystem is Cesspool Cave in Virginia. When we think of ecosystems cut off from the rest of the planet, I don’t think many of us consider the fact that tiny sealed ecosystems have been created on purpose by some people and these ecosystems seen to be successful for years. One can buy a self-sustaining desktop aquarium. There are hobbyists who grow plants in a sealed bottle or jar. There is a site named WikiHow which contains instructions on how to build a closed aquatic ecosystem. Quite frankly I had never heard about this until I started doing research. A man in 1960 grew a sealed glass bottle terrarium. Today he calls it the world’s oldest terrarium. It seems to still be going strong. Here is an incredible fact about the terrarium, it has not been watered since 1972. You can also build an aquarium with animals such as aquatic shrimp, snails or copepods and you will never have to feed them, change the water or do anything to keep them going if you create the sealed aquarium correctly. This idea is intriguing to me since I have had many aquariums and they either took a lot of management and cleaning, or I found all my fish belly up one morning. Maybe I am not a good manager of aquariums, but I tried my best but I couldn’t make it past a couple of years. A sealed aquarium is a whole different ball game. Once you set it up all you have to do, or not even have to do, is look at it occasionally. There are plenty of caves on this planet and I am sure there must be more waiting to be discovered which have their own ecosystems. When we get into human spaceflight, and get to other worlds, we might find there is a lot more diversity in caves on alien planets than the ones here.
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