The desert that surrounds Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southeastern New Mexico is not an environment conducive to cave formation and cannot account for the over 100 caves dissolved from the areas’ limestone bedrock; most of the cave formation in this area took place during the last ice age when the climate here was wetter and pine forests covered the landscape above the cave.
Unlike Mammoth Cave, which was formed by slightly acidic groundwater percolating down from the surface dissolving and enlarging fractures, at Carlsbad Caverns water enriched with hydrogen-sulfide from oil and gas deposits buried in sedimentary layers beneath the limestone migrated up from below and mixed with rainwater to form sulfuric acid, dissolving the rock and but leaving behind delicate cave deposits made of gypsum.
More information on Carlsbad from the National Parks Service.
http://www.nps.gov/cave/naturescience/cave.htm
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