Saturday, March 6, 2010

Travel to Longkongdong






What is Longkongdong?

Longkongdong is a beautiful limestone cave which belongs to karst landform. Nowadays, it is famous as one of the biggest limestone caves of China and became landscape and famous scenery in Fujian province.




Introduction of limestone caves

A cave is a natural opening or cavity within the earth, generally extending from the earth's surface to beyond the zone of light. Three generic classes of caves can be recognized according to the major sculpturing process: (1) caves formed by pressure or flow, (2) caves carved by erosion, and (3) caves dissolved by solution. Those structures formed by mechanical pressure or flow include lava tunnels associated with volcanoes (e.g., Catacombs Cave in Lava Beds National Monument, California) and "badland caves" excavated from poorly consolidated rock by hydraulic pressure (e.g., small caves of the arid Badlands of South Dakota). The caves carved by erosion include shoreline grottos created by the mechanical action of waves (e.g., La Jolla sea caves near San Diego, California) and rock shelters cut by river meanders (e.g., the massive sandstone alcoves of the famed cliff-dwelling Pueblo Indians). The caves dissolved by solution include ice caves associated with glaciers and the familiar limestone caverns or caves. Limestone caves are, by far, the most common type of caves.



Where is Longkongdong?
Longkongdong is located in Fujian province of China. In addition, it lies on south part of Wuyi Mountain . Although Longkongdong is 48 km away from downtown area, there is the best tour road of Fujian province directly reach it.


As we can see from the above picture,there is a stone called “dragon umbrella”.It is precious because there are only 2 stones like that all over the world ( the other one discovered in Europe).


The history of Longkongdong

According to a scientific research, Longkongdong is a ocean originally. What we see today is after three times of crustal movements and intermittent evolvements. It came into being from Paleozoic Period about three billion years ago. Longkongdong has been discovery from Tang Dynasty and people after Tang Dynasty go to visit Longkongdong constantly.



My own experience

I have been to Longkongdong last year during Chinese Spring Festival. My tourist guide said that it is constant temperature inside the cave at about 25 degree Celsius .That is the reason why it will neither be too hot in summer nor too cold in winter. Best of all,there is a stone called “dragon umbrella”.It is precious because there are only 2 stones like that all over the world ( the other one discovered in Europe). Furthermore, people made interesting-styled stones up into fairy tales by their imagination . Consequently , people who visit there enjoy a fantastic journey combined by human and nature. In a word, Longkongdong made a deep impression to me by its unbelievable beauty, precious and centuries-old history. My whole family enjoy a happy holiday there. Last but not the least, I recommend you to visit Longkongdong and prove whether what I said is true.
Reference
1. Austin, S. Origin of limestone caves. From institute for creation research web site : http://www.icr.org/article/origin-limestone-caves/

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