Located in the Chihuahuan Desert of southeastern New Mexico, CARLSBAD CAVERNS NATIONAL PARK preserves a spectacular array of mineral formations in a network of more than eighty limestone caves.

Formed from a 400-mile-long reef in an inland sea covering the region 250 million years ago, the network of caves at Carlsbad is one of the world's largest underground chambers. The sea evaporated, burying the reef. Part of it was later exposed, forming the Guadalupe Mountains, while the underground limestone portion slowly dissolved through the action of water and hydrogen sulfide gas migrating upward from vast oil and gas deposits beneath the ancient reef.

Photo: Jack Parsons/Omni-Photo Communications, Inc.