Snowy River Cave

The Bureau of Land Management reports that Snowy River may be the largest continuous cave formation in America.

After visits to the dry riverbed in 2001, 2003 and 2005, explorers were surprised to find Snowy River flowing with water in 2007 and also in 2010 after a heavy winter snowfall.

The non-profit [1] group has a long history of work in the cave, and in 2017 published a new book 12 Miles From Daylight with over 300 pages and 350 photographs and maps, featuring explorations from 1855 to the present.

From crusts on the cave walls, antibiotic-producing actinobacteria and some 36 strains of manganese-using bacteria have been discovered.

New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology says the organisms live in this isolated environment by chemically breaking down manganese compounds,[1][2] creating reconstituted mineral byproducts in the process that may have pharmaceutical uses.