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Post date: Jul 5, 2013 5:14:58 PM
WHAS11.com
Posted on July 4, 2013 at 5:54 PM
Updated yesterday at 6:01 PM
CORYDON, Ind. -- Two-hundred feet below the surface, a whole new underground world has been discovered in Southern Indiana.
The Indiana Caverns in Corydon dates back to the ice age and now it's open to the public.
A narrow tunnel winds its way 200 feet below the ground in Corydon to Indiana caverns. An ice age world that is considered one of the most significant archaeological finds in the United States in decades. Cave explorer Gary Roberson said it started with a tiny entrance and at first he says he wasn't sure what he had stumbled upon.
"We thought there had been an entrance back in the pioneer days and they threw their cows in here, but it turns out they were all from the ice age and there hadn't been an entrance to this part of the cave since 12,000 to 15,000 years ago or longer," Gary Roberson with Indiana Caverns said.
It was just developed in 2012 and is now open to visitors. Inside there is vast cavern, a waterfall, underground rivers and a lake. The variety is what makes it so unique.
"There are a lot of rooms, heights and depths. There is a waterfall, ice age bones," Roberson added.
Roberson was the man that not only developed the property, but was the curious explorer that discovered prehistoric animal bones. Ice age bison bones can be found embedded in the cavern floor.
"We found fish and bears and birds back there," Roberson says.
It's believed that during the ice age, animals came through a tunnel, then stumbled among the rocks here and then became trapped.
It's believed that only 1 percent of the bones have been discovered. There's a whole new world in this cave and this is only part of it.
"We want to realize how fragile the resource is. We live on the surface, but we have to be cognisant of what's below us so we take care of it," Roberson said.
To learn more about Indiana Caverns go to www.indianacaverns.com.
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