World-class cave is found in southern NM, but research money is sparse
If you're claustrophobic you may not want to think about it too much, but as it turns out southeastern New Mexico is home to what many consider a world class cave formation called Snowy River. At four miles long so far, it's the longest known continuous calcite crystal cave formation in the world.
Volunteers with the Fort Stanton Cave Study Project are given credit for discovering the crystal river in 2001, which one researcher calls a "beautiful anomaly." Penny Boston, New Mexico Tech professor and associate director of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute, told the Associated Press that the cave provides researchers an extreme environment within which to explore life on the fringes. She likens it to practicing for Mars--around three dozen new microbes have been discovered so far.
New Mexico's two senators agree, apparently, that the cave is full of research potential. They've been seeking designation for it as a national conservation area, which would allow federal dollars to flow more easily to the project. That would be welcome to Snowy River researchers. According to Boston, the funding for science these days is a big problem:
"There's not enough money," she says. "It's very unclear where the national leadership is going in terms of science so it's one of the toughest environments for getting the funding that I've experienced in a 30-year career."
Boston and her colleagues are writing three or four times more research proposals a year than they used to and are getting fewer responses in return.
"It's a tough time to really be trying to do this, even for something as amazing as the Snowy River find," she says. "... It's a heartbreaking game."
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