Read the full article by Andrés Muedano (Inside Climate News)
“The first time Mitzi Ayala went inside a cenote, she felt as though she was entering an unknown, extraterrestrial world. Wearing a safety helmet, waterproof rubber boots, protective kneepads and a headlamp, she walked deep into a dark cave, thinking herself a character in an action-packed film.
Inside, she stared in awe at the limestone columns: pillars formed when a stalagmite growing from the ground up fuses with a stalactite growing from above. Solid structures like these will form incredibly slowly, sometimes over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. Droplets of calcite-rich water will drip from the tip of hanging stalactites, and as the liquid evaporates, minerals will start to build up. Ayala remembers how the crystals embedded in these formations shone back at her as she moved her bright headlamp.
Then she and her teammates got to work. Since 2021, Ayala has participated in cave-mapping efforts led by Cenotes Urbanos, a citizen science organization devoted to the conservation of cenotes—open or closed geological depressions that are inundated with groundwater. The word ‘cenote’ is derived from the Yucatec Mayan tz’ono’ot, meaning cavern with water, or natural well, and cenotes have indeed been the main source of freshwater for inhabitants of the Yucatán Peninsula since humans first settled in what is now the south of Mexico.
More recently, however, in the face of interconnected environmental threats, cenotes have seen unprecedented levels of degradation. These ecosystems are in danger, as are the communities, human and non-human, that rely on them for survival. Two recent studies shed light on the processes driving the cenotes’ perilous condition. Citizens are working hard to raise awareness as well.”…