Volcanic Caves

Compositionally, the cave sediments match the stream sediments in the bed of Fairy Creek, particularly the pebbles and cobbles, which are predominantly rhyolitic volcanics. 

The presence of glasses in our everyday environment is so common that we rarely notice their existence. Our current casual attitude toward the family of materials known as glasses has not always existed. Early Egyptians considered glasses as precious materials, as evidenced by the glass beads found in the tombs and golden death masks of ancient Pharaohs. The cave-dwellers of even earlier times relied on chipped pieces of obsidian, a natural volcanic glass, for tools and weapons, i.e., scrapers, knives, axes, and heads for spears and arrows. 

Kyle et al. (1982a) recorded the volcanic activity on the summit of Erebus from January 1973 until December 1976. During this time, the lava lake increased substantially and strombolian gas eruptions occurred at the rate of one to three per day. Kyle et al. (1982a) also monitored the seismic activity of the summit area by means of seismographs that were installed in a warm ice cave originally described by Giggenbach (1976). The frequency of volcanic earthquakes in December of 1974 was about 1,0001984 per week (Dibble et al., 1989). 

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