Dr. Rickard Toomey's workplace is dark and damp; the water drips constantly and bugs and bats abound. He can't think of any place he'd like better.

Toomey is the cave specialist for Kartchner Caverns, the limestone cave that opened to public view just five years ago in Southern Arizona. It has been dubbed the "jewel of the desert," and is on the top ten list of caves around the world because of its rare formations and pristine state.

He did not come to his job in the usual way. "Most cave specialists and cave management people are cavers who took their positions so they could play in caves," Toomey said. "I started out as a scientist."

"I tell people I'm not a caver, but since it's usually just after I completed a 1000- foot belly crawl through a small passage deep in a cave, they don't believe me," says Dr. Rickard Toomey as he leads the way into Kartchner Caverns.

He has a doctorate in quaternary paleontology from the University of Texas and an undergraduate degree in geology. Both branches of science have been useful on the job since he oversees the care and protection of the cave, as well as science research and monitoring at the state park.

The cave's condition has been a concern since it was discovered in 1974. It is a living cave with formations still being created by dripping water. These include delicate "soda straw" formations fractions of an inch in diameter, over 20 feet long and still growing. The cave opened in 1999 after delays caused by the high level of caution used in constructing pathways, tunnels and entries.

"During the cave's development, park officials worked with many cave experts  - from National Parks personnel to show cave developers. They had lots of good advice and most of it was done very well," says Toomey.

Careful construction was only the beginning. Maintaining the wellbeing of the cave is no simple task. It is immensely popular, with visitors booking tours months in advance. Nearly 500 people a day take the Rotunda Room Tour - 24 per tour, every 20 minutes for eight hours. An additional 200 visit the Big Room when it is open. As most cavers will tell you, people have a detrimental effect on a cave - from the wear of footsteps and fingers to lint from clothing. (Minuscule bits of fluff are enough to block the flow of water that deposits new layers of stone, scientists point out.)

Slim and neatly dressed in blue jeans, an official gray Arizona State Parks polo shirt and hiking boots, Toomey stands at the cave entrance and points up at blowers. They gently blast lint off visitors and prevent the mixing of dry outside air with the moist environment inside. In summer, misters help with lint control and have the additional benefit of cooling visitors. Cave protection begins well before guests get to the cave entrance. Beautifully crafted exhibits educate visitors about the fragility of the cave and proper cave etiquette - some realistic displays can be touched, and even crawled through, but no touching is allowed in the cave. Personal items are stored in lockers before the shuttles take groups up the hill to the airlock entrance.

As the heavy freezer-type doors swing shut behind Toomey, the air becomes moist and warm and smells of the earth. The 99 percent humidity is quite a contrast to the dry desert air outside. 

He points out the pathway whose edges curve upward for a few inches forming a trough that can be hosed down without damaging the cave. Grates and sumps drain water away from the cave.

Since Toomey started, he has made some modifications, such as repositioning lights so less wattage is required and less heat is generated. He also looks for signs of algae forming.

"Caves are great greenhouse environments, moist and humid. The only thing they lack is light and we provide that," he says.

"Basically, the State Parks did a good job, so modifications now are tweaking rather than wholesale changes. It's a good position to be in," he adds.

That doesn't mean his job is easy. When he started in 2001 one of the first challenges was to determine if a proposed development on the northern boundary of the park would have a detrimental effect on the cave. While the park had been mapped in detail, geological mapping just outside the park had been rudimentary. Toomey's geology background came in handy, as drainage patterns were determined. In one area, storm debris showed flows of 500 gallons per minute, but downstream there was no flow, indicating a "losing stream" where water disappears into the earth through faults.

"It would be irresponsible to build in that area because of the potential threat to the cave's water supply. We erred on the side of cave protection,  initiated condemnation proceedings and purchased the land to add to the park's property," says Toomey.

Along the rough-hewn rock walls of the tunnel, faults and "slickenside" surfaces are a reminder of how huge blocks of Mississippian-age Escabrosa limestone slid down to their current location in an extension of the earth's crust, during basin and range faulting 8-15 million years ago.  A stone the size of a car is suspended in the cave's ceiling; it is part of the fault gouge, rock ground up by the grinding movement of two blocks of stone as they shifted. The cave is located in a highly tectonic region with many faults zones. Hot water solutions found their way up through these cracks and left behind minerals that contributed to the beautifully colored and unusual formations in the cave.

Kartchner Caverns made the top ten list of caves because it has very unusual mineralogy - six different crystal classes in one cave: carbonates, nitrates, oxides, phosphates, silicates and sulfates. Some have never before been seen in a cave.

Water glistens along translucent ribbons of rock called "bacon" because of their red and cream coloring. A drop hangs suspended at the end of a stalactite - still forming. The droplets leave behind minuscule rock particles as they give in to gravity and splash on the floor.

"Most of the formations were created at the end of the last glacial period 11,000 years ago, and the interglacial period, 75,000 to 125,000 years ago, when the outside environment was much wetter. The water volume is much less now.  We are icing the cake that was built in the Pleistocene Epoch," says Toomey.

He points out mud flats and mud cracks that indicate a time of profound drying. Changing  environmental conditions are one of the big questions in Toomey's day-to-day concerns. Monitoring equipment in the cave tracks air temperature, sediment temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide levels, and radon levels. Other equipment in the park records the weather and water flow in the washes.

At first, the data seemed to show a direct correlation between cave construction and rising temperatures and aridity.

"My first annual report in 2002 was based on data from the cave which compared timing patterns. I was just shy of saying that the warming was due to development. But, over the next year, I gathered forest service data, well data and information about conditions in nearby caves to get a sense of regional changes in climate and the water table. It's not clear-cut that it is solely development related," says Toomey.

Development concerns also arose regarding the wildlife of the cave. Park officials wanted to open the Big Room to tours because of its spectacular colors and formations, but during the summer months, it is a maternity ward for 1000 Myotis velifer bats. Bat guano provides the outside energy for cave's ecosystem of bacteria, mites, springtails, nematodes, pseudo-scorpions, spiders and crickets and bats, says Toomey. He has done extensive research on bats and bat environments during his on-going study of the paleontology of caves at Mammoth Cave National Park. The decision was made to open the Big Room only from mid-October to March.

He may say he is not a caver, but caves have been a significant part of Toomey's life since he did his Ph.D. dissertation, Late Pleistocene and Holocene Faunal and Environmental Changes at Hall's Cave, Kerr County, Texas. Subsequently, he was Assistant Curator of Geology at the Illinois State Museum and worked on the Illinois Department of Natural Resources' Karst Working Group to develop management and protection strategies for caves. He was also President of the Illinois Speleological Survey and is currently President of the Cave Research Foundation.

He heard about this position through the caving community. It sounded like an interesting job, but the 41-year old says, with a grin, that if he had known how many "grown-up decisions" he would have to make, he might not have applied.

When he accepted for the job, he had to make choices not only about his career, but about where he wanted to live and even if he wanted to get married. He was in a long-distance relationship with a woman he met while caving. She had been a student in Indiana but moved to Georgia. Suddenly, they were forced to decide whether to get married and live in the same place.

He took the job, she found a position as a adjunct linguist at the University of Arizona and they were married a year and a half ago. They live in Tucson and Toomey makes the 50-minute one-way commute to the cave. He thinks he made the right decisions.

"I enjoy being married to my wife, I like Arizona and I enjoy this job a great deal," said Toomey.

Throughout the tour, Toomey constantly checks the time and a schedule to make sure he is staying within the guidelines established for the carefully choreographed tours. They are regulated to insure there are not too many people in any one region of the cave. Lights signal when it is okay to enter an area, and he pushes a button when he leaves to let the next group enter. He rarely gives a tour during regular hours. He finds himself working more with data than actual work in the cave.  Friends in the national park service warned him that cave specialists don't actually get to go in the cave. They sit at a desk and send out e-mails about it, they told him.

"I'm like the professors who don't get to go out and play in the field, but use the data that their graduate students collect," he says.

Back in his office, as he sits with one leg tucked beneath him in a maroon swivel chair, he is surrounded by data and information. The metal desk and credenza and  the table behind him are scattered with papers, bugs in vials and rocks. Boxes under the desk hold more papers. Maps and plans are half furled on top of the bookshelves. The book titles give an indication of the variety of topics his work involves: Geologic Excursions Through the Sonoran Desert Region, National Cave and Karst Research Institute 2003 Annual Report, Bats: A Natural History, Reconstructing Quaternary Environments, Packrat Middens and Geology of Arizona.

Toomey picks up an aspirator from the cluttered table. He made it from a film canister and soda straws to pick up insects from bat guano in the cave. Inside is a piece of mesh to avoid inhaling the bugs. All in a day's work.

There is no such thing as a typical day for Toomey, but he lists a few things he has done this week: checked the GPS coordinates for park pavilions to see if they were mapped correctly; settled some aerial photo issues; went to Phoenix to work on a data bases for the whole agency, sent e-mails, met with an engineering student, met with some other researchers and talked with volunteers at the visitors center on management issues.

Park Manager Richard Ferdon says that Toomey is always helpful and available when more information about the cave is needed.

Toomey's enthusiasm for his work shows as he discusses various research projects at the park. His eyes sparkle behind his glasses and his speech becomes quicker as he discusses how a laser scanner testing project can help in another area of research - the film dynamics of  ripples on cave formations. That project, in turn, may also relate to microbiology. He tells about a group of students that will measure airflow in the cave.

His job description was recently expanded to include resource management for all of the state parks.

"The state parks are changing from mainly recreation and historic preservation sites to more of a land management and conservation agency. As we do that, there will be new and additional responsibilities, responsibilities that might not have been recognized before. We'll need to know the value of the land and its resources and how to protect it. That will mean increased monitoring.

"We're working toward more partnerships and building internal capabilities with both employees and volunteers," saysToomey.

He sees the State Parks facilitating studies and researchers on all levels.

"It's an economic way for us to be able to do studies and add to our knowledge. We need to know the state of our resources, but we don't have the personnel to do it, quite frankly," Toomey says.

He would like to see professors thinking of long term projects, such as one on invasive plants. One student could devise treatments, five years later, another student could research the results of the treatments.

"I envision the state parks as places available for many types of research," he says.

"And I'll get to work with lots of cool people on interesting projects," Toomey says with a smile.

Sources

Personal interview and cave tour with Rickard Toomey, 10-20-2004    Kartchner Caverns State Park 520-586-4110

Cave tour and interview with Rickard Toomey, 11-6-2003

Cave Minerals of the World, Second Edition by Carol Hill and Paolo Forti, National Speleological Society, Huntsville, Alabama, Copyright 1997

www.tmm.utexas.edu/vpl/toomey.html (The University of Texas at Austin)

www.terrain.org/columns/15/guest.htm - Deep, Dark Secrets Protected This Cave System by Ellen Bilbry

Ellen Bilbry, Arizona State Parks Public Information Officer, 502-542-1996, 602-228-8518

Richard Ferdon, Park Manager, Kartchner Caverns State Park 520-586-4110

AZ State Parks - Kartchner Caverns State Park CD

2002, 2003 Cave Resources Manger Reports

Arizona Conservation Projects Report

Miscellaneous papers and abstracts

Kartchner Caverns Thumbnail

McGrew Geological Map