So scientists turned to another method to measure the painting's age - they used
flowstones.
* Cover Styrofoam cones, boxes, or cardboard with papier-mache, and then paint and varnish them to create stalagmites,
flowstone, and other deposits.
A further sample, taken in June 2011 from the same
flowstone deposit, revealed a minimum date of 14,505 years BP, plus or minus 560 years.
"For some reason, and by complete coincidence, the person who engraved this art over 12,000 years ago did so on a piece of rock where a
flowstone later grew over it, which is the only reason we could work out its history."
Other speleothems include
flowstone that looks like a rock river, rounded polished cave pearls, and feathery aragonite.
Chronological control for the fauna was established based on two independent uranium-series dates on clean carbonate extracted from
flowstone at the base of the excavation (Jass, 2007).
The Tynebottom mine has produced an interesting suite of nickel and cobalt-containing minerals including erythrite, safflorite, nickel-skullerudite, violarite, rammelsbergite, annabergite, and some very attractive specimens of drusy calcite and "
flowstone" colored pink to deep magenta by micro-inclusions of erythrite, or blue by copper salts.
The cave decorations consist of stalactites, stalagmites, pillars, drapery, rimstone pools,
flowstone, helictites, soda straws, and other unusual crystal formations.
"Increasing number of visitors to the site meant that the impact on the
flowstone was large and parts of it were damaged.
The concert is sponsored by
Flowstone, a monthly publication that chronicles sustainable living techniques.
(1995): Paleoclimate implications of mass spectrometric dating of a British
flowstone. Geology, 23: 309-312.
An archaeological study on the extraction of
flowstone from caves and rockshelters for producing stone money in western Micronesia.