Touching formations

Amy

New member
Since this is a highly scientific group id thought id ask here:

We all hear that touching formations is bad. Yes!

However I am currious as to studies done on this. Obviously geting formations muddy ruins them. Obviously if a good stal is on a well traveled climbup route it will be worn down. Im talking thinggs like cleanboots worn in Lech to keep the formations pristine. A delicate touch of a clean bare hand. That stuff we dont inatly think will damage but its been pressed into our psyche that it does.

Is there any data or logitudnal study for such things? Is there a safest safe way when touch cannot be avoided? Is a brush of a bare hand really going to kill a formation (ive been told once skin oils touch a formation it will no longer grow....i cant find any data for this?)
 

Bottlebank

New member
Seems a bit unlikely, I've seen enough mud layered with calcite to be fairly sure it keeps getting deposited. I'm no scientist though!
 

graham

New member
Skin oils will not stop stal growth, but will certainly discolour it. There are plentiful examples of this in show caves the world over.
 

martinm

New member
Amy said:
Since this is a highly scientific group id thought id ask here: We all hear that touching formations is bad. Yes!

However I am curious as to studies done on this. Obviously getting formations muddy ruins them. Obviously if a good stal is on a well travelled climb up route it will be worn down. Im talking things like clean boots worn in Lech to keep the formations pristine. A delicate touch of a clean bare hand. That stuff we don't innately think will damage but its been pressed into our psyche that it does.

Is there any data or longitudinal study for such things? Is there a safest safe way when touch cannot be avoided? Is a brush of a bare hand really going to kill a formation (I've been told once skin oils touch a formation it will no longer grow....i cant find any data for this?)

Why not just wear disposable latex gloves if you intend touching a formation? Problem removed.

Also "if a good stal is on a well travelled climb up route", it should be taped off encouraging people to follow a route around it, this is standard conservation practice in the UK, although not everyone respects the tapes and so cause unnecessary damage. It's mostly common sense, but obv. not everyone seems to have that and cross or trample the tapes for whatever reason...

Regards Mel. DCA Conservation Officer.
 

bograt

Active member
mmilner said:
Why not just wear disposable latex gloves if you intend touching a formation? Problem removed.

I can understand where Amy's coming from on this one. With lack of research, who can say if the plasticiser in a latex glove causes less damage than a sweaty palm?

However, I think we all would agree, if your hands are mucky, DON'T Touch.

 

Fulk

Well-known member
bograt:
With lack of research, who can say if the plasticiser in a latex glove causes less damage than a sweaty palm?
My guess ? and I freely admit it is a pure guess ? is that the amount of plasticizer deposited from a latex glove would be much smaller than the amount of sweat deposited by a sweaty palm.
 

bograt

Active member
Fulk said:
bograt:
With lack of research, who can say if the plasticiser in a latex glove causes less damage than a sweaty palm?
My guess ? and I freely admit it is a pure guess ? is that the amount of plasticizer deposited from a latex glove would be much smaller than the amount of sweat deposited by a sweaty palm.

Proportion of damage vs deposit? like I said, lack of research, latex could deposit one fifth of polutant onto the stal, but could cause twice the harm.
 

nickwilliams

Well-known member
<pendant mode=on>

Latex doesn't contain plasticisers, it's naturally a liquid anyway, so you have to put vulcanisers in it to make it solid.

Now, nitrile or PVC gloves, that's a different matter....

<pendant mode=off>

Carry on chaps!
 

bograt

Active member
nickwilliams said:
<pendant mode=on>

Latex doesn't contain plasticisers, it's naturally a liquid anyway, so you have to put vulcanisers in it to make it solid.

<pendant mode=off>

Carry on chaps!

Hmm, you mean sulphuric acid, the usual vulcaniser, doesn't that dissolve limestone?
 

Amy

New member
Interesting latex vs nitrile vs clean just wiped off hand thoughts.

I still am not seeing any relevant data.

I had not heard the discoloration? Is it to white only or any color? A lot of our formations here are brown by nature.
 

martinm

New member
Amy said:
Interesting latex vs nitrile vs clean just wiped off hand thoughts.

I still am not seeing any relevant data.

I had not heard the discoloration? Is it to white only or any color? A lot of our formations here are brown by nature.

U r right Amy. I don't think much research has been done on this subject, but has been said above... if in doubt, don't touch! The main problem is with hands / gloves with mud on them, this can then get incorporated into the growing formation and then is not removable.

There is no reason to touch formations apart from our natural curiosity. Best to just admire and photograph them and leave them pristine for future generations of cave explorers...

They have taken a long time to form and people need to be educated that a few seconds 'handling' can ruin them forever...
 

Amy

New member
Again, not looking for people saying "dont touch". We all know that. We could argue all day long about when can we make a path through a formation filled room, and when we just call it the end of the cave. Of when we can break one or more to continue a dig, or leave it be. We all know mud on a formation muddies it forever, I've personally seen flowstone that one bit of mud got dropped onto accidentally (you see it from above) and they tried to clean it off appropriately on the next trip, and it is forever stained. These sorts are not the reason for this thread.

I want to know the science of touching with a gloved or clean-wiped bare hand.

I want to understand do we say this blanket rule to keep people from being stupid (a worthy reason in and of itself - I am not arguing this!) or is there actual scientific validity to - especially something like - a gloved or just-wiped-free-of-sweat bare hand really killing it?

I was able to find this 2014 study: http://www.ijcs.uaic.ro/public/IJCS-14-02-Ma.pdf
While the test was not done in caves, it is as best related as I can find which would seem to confirm the oil-on-skin causes a darkening of the coloration (over long time and lots of touching in the same area, almost black by looks of the photos) which was suggested earlier in the thread. However they concluded that while changing the apperance, it stood up much better to various forces of nature that weather the rock. Now mind you this is 1) sandstone and 2) carved relics into the grotto (buddahs, mainly, so preservation is perhaps more important than coloration unlike a cave). But it remains the only actual "controlled" testing I've found thus far. "Controlled" because there is no way of knowing exactly how much touching the various areas received - would one touch hurt/help (depending on how you view it) in any measurable amount vs how many likely thousands in this study.

Still, I would say it's safe to conclude from this study: Skin oils will likely change the color of the formation, thus disrupting its original state.

Maybe this should be moved to the science subforum? (mods?)
 

graham

New member
With regard to the lack of research. There is certainly empirical evidence, as I said earlier, from show caves that calcite which is regularly ţouched gets discoloured.  That there is not data from controlled testing is surely down to the fact that no one wishes to see their stal (yes, NigR it does belong to someone) get permanently discoloured just to prove a point. This is the 'precautionary principle' in operation.
 

TheBitterEnd

Well-known member
Always strikes me as a bit curious that we are SO focused on calcite as the major objective for conservation. Yes stal is pretty but the mud you are smearing on it came from somewhere and is part of the formation of the cave, the whole cave is a formation. We seem to think very little about capping and banging away at a narrow crack to make it bigger - destroying that diagnostic fossil along the way - but agonise over breaking a straw to explore beyond it.

I am not advocating wanton destruction of stal or anything else but we need to keep a sense of balance.
 

graham

New member
Fair point,  TBE, not everyone is that fixated, though. If you've ever been involved in conservation audits for Natural England you'd have seen that they are equally well as interested in other sediments and in passage morphology as well.
 

caverbabe

New member
"The crystalline structure of speleothems can be very porous, making them vulnerable to damage if people touch them. The natural oils in our skin will leave a light coating of oil on the formation. While one touch has only a minimal effect, many deposits of oil over time prevent any further growth. When calcium solution runs over the formation it normally leaves a layer of calcite behind. However, the human oils create a coating that the calcite cannot cling to."

Found this explanation in a New Zealand teachers guide to understanding caves.  The idea is that this fundamentally alters the deposition of calcite, hence changing the accumulation which results in the speleothem growth and thus can cause it to stop growing in that particular location.  That was always my understanding.  I've also found a link from the SO Velebit website but there is no translation from the Croatian, only the abstract. I've emailed the author to see what I can find.
 
Top