Formed by millennia of rain trickling through bedrock and ice, these recesses act as time capsules for anthropologists, biologists, and climatologists, who search them for precious remnants of life predating even the dinosaurs. Today, caving also attracts nyctophiles seeking calm darkness and self-trained cartographers looking to draw a more complete picture of the planet’s past and present.
This self-portrait depicts Shone posing in the back of a long quartzite cave under Venezuela’s tabletop mountains, known by locals as tepuis, or “houses of gods.” He’d tagged along with an Italian team of microbiologists who were sampling bacteria from the underwater rocks and lakes to, among other things, study topics such as antibiotic resistance. The damp recesses under the tepuis house a rare network of organisms, known as stromatolites.
Our first & last habitat?
Breathtaking photos, like something out of Lord of the Rings! ⛰️