How do stalactites and stalagmites form?
Channel: Jessica Dickinson Goodman
Date: 2013-02-17

I took this video last week at Qozhaya, the Monastery of Saint Anthony the Great, a Maronite monastery in northern Lebanon. The mountains in that area are limestone and the valley it overlooks is cut by a river, and you know what you get with rivers and limestone? Caves! In this case, a cave that as first inhabited in the 4th century (my tour guide said 5th, which is why I say that in the video, but the monastary's website [http://www.qozhaya.com/history.html] says 4th). It's religious history and significance is important, but, for me, just as fun was the active and visible evidence of a geological process: the formation of stalactites and stalagmites in the cave.

Just remember: stalaCtites form on the Ceiling and stalaGmites form on the Ground.

All of my geological training comes from a lifetime of rock nerdery and a semester of geology in college, so I'm happy to be corrected by the better-informed.