[ml/nj]

The paintings were found in the Nerja Caves, 35 miles east of Malaga in the southern region of Andalusia. Spanish scientists sent organic residue found next to the paintings to Miami, where they were dated at being between 43,500 and 42,300 years old.

Uuh, it's me the resident FR skeptic.

I thought these stalactites or stalagmites (I always forget which type hangs down.) were formed over long periods of time by water with with dissolved CaCO₃ dripping into caves and essentially forming icicle-like these things. That means that they start off thin and grow thicker as additional water drips down the outside of the icicle, evaporates, and leaves more CaCO₃ on the outside of the growing icicle. This means that whatever was painted on the outside, supposedly long ago, should be covered up now by more CaCO₃ deposited in the interim. No?

ML/NJ

[BigBobber]

I noticed the same thing right away. This “discovery” does not pass the “smell test”, not by a long shot. The nearby stalactites are still growing, you can see that by the whites dots on their tips that are water drops reflecting the light.

It would be nearly impossible for these paintings to survive intact on the surface of a stalactite for 40,000 years.They would either be covered up by mineral deposits or eroded away.

[US_MilitaryRules]

Why do you have to throw a monkey wrench into the fray? Nobody wants facts of reality! LOL

[Graewoulf]

Mite = MIGHT! as in making a fist to show off the impressive might of your bicep, and then raising your fist to your head height. Your forearm and fist are up, stalagmites point up too.

CaCo3 ceases to be deposited when the water containing dissolved CaCo3 ceases to flow over the surfaces of the dripstones. Hence, these dripstones are much older than 42kyr, and the cave is older than the dripstones.

Yep, your thinking was correct!

[muir_redwoods]

Stalactites ( think “T” for top) do drip down from the top as you describe. They will continue to to so as long as the ground water conditions above the cave remain unchanged. I have no information on this detail for this cave but conditions could have changed and dried up millions of years before the painting were done and remained that way. Those stalactites could have been massive “ canvases” for that Neanderthal painter and way older than the paintings themselves.

[IYAS9YAS]

(I always forget which type hangs down.)

I had someone tell me the easiest way to remember was that stalactites "hang tight" to the ceiling. That was 30+ years ago, so it certainly stuck.

[Jewbacca]

“This means that whatever was painted on the outside, supposedly long ago, should be covered up now by more CaCO3 deposited in the interim. No?”

Maybe. Depends when the stalagmites stopped “growing” Eventually, they reach a size where the water can’t flow down them, or comes down unevenly.

Aside from the “art” issue, being this deep in a cave shows NT (or whomever) mastered not only fire, but mobile fire used for lighting a cave. That’s huge.

[editor-surveyor]

The “long period of time” theory crumbles with a trip to the basement of the Lincolin Memorial.
.

[Smokin' Joe]

This means that whatever was painted on the outside, supposedly long ago, should be covered up now by more CaCO3 deposited in the interim. No?

Good thinking, but not necessarily so. Caves go through dry and wet periods, and when dry, there is no active accretion of speleothems. You are right that evaporating water deposits the Calcium Carbonate (or calcium sulphate, in some cases) which forms the stalagmites, stalactites, columns and other formations within the cave, but without water movement, there is no deposition.

I have been in dry caves, wet ones, and some which were dry in one part and wet in other places. So it is possible that the drawings could survive for a long period of time, just as signatures or markings on the wall of a cave do.

[Smokin' Joe]

On second look, yes, there is water on the speleothem tips nearby and on the rock behind the formation.

The 'soda straw' developing on the end of the one stalactite indicates a new period of growth and possibly previous breakage, and I have seen such (about that size) in archways of limestone buildings about 100 years old in Virginia. While it would make one suspicious, it doesn't mean that the new growth isn't a recent development.

It could be genuine, it might be a publicity stunt.

[thackney]

stalactites or stalagmites (I always forget which type hangs down.)

You will get several different reminders, G = ground = down.

But I find few forget that the top half of the human body does not contain the "mit", it does the other word choice equivalent.

[Kirkwood]

You can see that pigment from the drawings has been displaced downward, which suggests that the drawings have been there a long time.

[Bellflower]

Stalactites hang on tightly to the ceiling so they don’t fall off. Stalagmites are trying with all their might to reach the ceiling.