Tongass National Forest
| Local Links | ||
 |
Prince of Wales | |
|
Recreation | |
|
Conservation Education | |
|
Island Info | |
| |
Projects & Plans | |
|
Chugach National Forest |
|
Alaska Region |
|
Forest Service Headquarters |
|
Evaluate
Our Service We welcome your comments on our service and your suggestions for improvement. |
Tongass National Forest (907) 225-3101 e-mail comments to: |
|
Tongass Home » About the Tongass » Geology: Glaciers and Caves
|
Cave Secrets
The caves of Southeast Alaska harbor secrets of the past. In the last 20 years, scientists have spent summers on their knees in mud and muck trying to decipher the many clues they're finding in the caves on Prince of Wales Island.
From the standpoint of geology and prehistoric interest, the most compelling cave on the island is El Capitan. With more than 13,000 feet (3,960 m) of passageways, it is the longest known cave in Alaska.
Recent archeological discoveries in El Cap, as the cave is called locally, have stimulated tremendous scientific interest.
Ancient grizzly bear bones found in El
Capitan Cave have been radiocarbon dated to 12,295 years before present.
Black bear bones have been dated to 11,565 years before present. These findings suggest that the El Capitan valley was ice-free by at
least 12,300 years ago. It was previously believed that ice covered
the land to the continent's margin with only peaks higher than 3,000
feet
exposed. Discoveries in the caves have spawned subsequent extensive
research into the prehistory and paleoecology of southern Southeast Alaska.
In other island caves, the remains of several locally extinct species (brown bear, lemming, caribou, heather vole, marmot, red fox, and others), representing a time before establishment of the coastal rainforest, have been dated to over 40,000 years before present, prior to the peak of the last glacial period.
USDA Forest Service - Tongass National Forest
Last Modified: April 08, 2009