[3] Near the entrance to the caves are two sanctuary-chapels: one is the 1029 Santuario di Santa Maria infra Saxa (Sanctuary of Holy Mary under the Rock) and the second is an 1828 Neoclassical architecture formal temple, known as Tempietto del Valadier.

Among the cavers that have spent considerable amount of time inside the cave is the Italian sociologist Maurizio Montalbini.

Macalady, along with doctoral student Dani Buchheister, explored Italy's Frasassi cave system, sampling biofilms, referred to as "alien cave goo" due to its stringy dark nature, from underground lakes, including Lago Verde.

Their research, featured in the December 2023 issue of National Geographic,[6] sought to uncover how microbes survive in extreme conditions without sunlight or oxygen, akin to early Earth.

Key findings included that microbes can survive with minimal resources such as rocks and water, and that these biofilms may reflect the first metabolic processes on Earth.