Deep discoveries: How UTC’s acquisition of Raccoon Mountain Caverns will shape (under)groundbreaking research

Students in Robert Lake Wilson Professor of Geology Amy Brock-Hon’s “A Moc’s First Year” course toured Raccoon Mountain Caverns in September, accompanied by UTC photographer Angela Foster.

Approximately 15 minutes southwest of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus sits Raccoon Mountain Caverns, a complex cave system known for its extensive underground formations, diverse ecosystem and educational caving tours that showcase the geological wonders of the region.

It is also UTC’s newest classroom and research laboratory.

Thanks to a generous donation, the University recently acquired the cave system, providing a unique research space for faculty and students in fields like biology, geology and environmental science. This acquisition represents a significant opportunity for UTC, considering the rarity of a university having full access to such a resource.

Raccoon Mountain Caverns is one of the Southeast’s most extensive cave systems, with over 5.5 miles of explored passageways. Its formation dates back millions of years and its unique environment presents researchers with an invaluable natural laboratory.

From the business standpoint, which UTC will not manage, visitors can enjoy the Crystal Palace walking tour, showcasing impressive geological formations like stalactites and flowstones in a guided, accessible environment—while the Wild Cave Expeditions offer varying levels of immersive caving experiences for adventure seekers looking to explore the deeper, more rugged parts of the cavern system.

From the research standpoint, Raccoon Mountain Caverns marks a monumental leap forward for UTC—particularly for the faculty and students within the Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science (BGE).

“One of the greatest things about it is that it hits all disciplines of our department,” said BGE Department Head and UC Foundation Professor Gretchen Potts. “We have geology at the core, but ecology, biology and environmental science are all at play here.”

The cavern system, now fully integrated into the University’s academic resources, provides a “field location close to campus where research can unfold,” she said.

“Raccoon Mountain Caverns opens up research possibilities that we’ve only dreamed of. We’ve always had big ideas. Now we have a big place to explore them.”

The role of philanthropy in making this possible

As with most milestones in UTC’s history, philanthropy played a vital role in the acquisition of Raccoon Mountain Caverns—which has been open to the public since 1932.

Dr. Steven Perlaky, a Chattanooga area emergency medicine physician, acquired the property in 1995. After 30 years of ownership, coinciding with his “semi-retirement” from medical practice, it was time to turn over stewardship of the property.

What do you do if you own a cave? He decided to donate it to UTC, with whom he had frequent collaborations throughout the years.

“I had thought long and hard about the best future for the cave, and I believe that to be in UTC’s hands,” Perlaky said. “The reality is that the University, with contacts and students, will spur far more research interest … hopefully we’ll find some secrets—maybe in the DNA of some species, or maybe we’ll even discover new species.”

The opportunity for interdisciplinary research is vast—and he believes that this is just the beginning.

“The more students you have that are interested in the cave, the more research that gets done, the happier I am,” he said.

Vice Chancellor for Advancement and Executive Director of the UC Foundation Kim White explained how this donation came to fruition and the importance of philanthropy in creating such transformative opportunities for the University.

“While not every day a university is gifted a cavern, it is an important example of how our students and campus can benefit from the unique assets donors can provide,” White said. “The lasting impact this will have as a recruitment and retention tool for students and faculty, along with preserving the cavern for research and as a wildlife habitat for our community, will reap benefits for decades to come.”

Why own a cave?

How rare is it for a university to own and operate a cave system? According to research assistance provided by the National Cave and Karst Research Institute, there are believed to be only seven other institutions across the country known to own a cave.

UTC’s interest in owning the cave stems from the immense scientific value it holds.

Raccoon Mountain Caverns is part of a karst system that includes a landscape characterized by caves, sinkholes and underground streams formed by the dissolution of soluble rocks like limestone.

Robert Lake Wilson Professor of Geology Amy Brock-Hon explained the significance of studying this environment and why having access to the cave system is so valuable for research and education.

“Chattanooga is a region famous for its karst geology and cave systems, and this cave is not just any cave—it’s part of a larger system of karst features that are unique to our region,” Brock-Hon said. “Caves contain diverse features and ecosystems. There are exciting formation processes that create unique features that connect above-ground and below-ground processes.

“It’s exciting to have this space. It’s our new lab.”

She said the geological formation, combined with the cave’s complex ecosystems, creates opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration beyond geology. Researchers will be able to study these systems in detail, making significant contributions to fields ranging from hydrology to conservation biology.

Geological research can span a wide range, she added, from analyzing samples under a microscope in a lab to collecting global data via satellites. Having easy, consistent access to those samples can often be a challenge, “but now we have a cave 15 minutes from here where we can monitor the samples over time,” she said. “There are so many great things about that.”

What makes this cave especially compelling, Brock-Hon said, is that it offers opportunities to study geology “in situ”—which refers to studying geological features or materials in their natural or original position without removing or disturbing them—without the limitations that other universities may face.

“Ideally, when geology students and researchers collect data, we want to collect data where it is,” she said, “and then—if we need to—we bring it back and analyze and study it. But the best way to study it is in place. We can see the relationships between features and their environment and think of our data within its systems.”

A research playground

Through the years, UTC faculty have dipped their toes into Raccoon Mountain Caverns’ scientific offerings, but now the possibilities are endless.

Back in 2015, Professor of Biology David Giles, a microbiologist, received a grant to explore the cave’s largely unstudied microbial biodiversity, leading him and his undergraduate students to conduct research in this overlooked area.

“We were particularly interested in the different environments, such as mud, water, dirt and high-traffic areas, to compare the biodiversity and the lipid profile of what we were able to collect in those locations,” Giles recalled. “We did identify several gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria in a variety of locations, some of which were specific to the terrain type.”

Working closely with senior Michael Schoonover during the 2015-2016 academic year, they discovered that human activity impacts the cave’s microbial diversity.

“Our results indicated a unique lipid profile between high-traffic areas and the lesser accessible or the inaccessible to the public areas,” Giles said, noting that human foot traffic appeared to introduce new microbial species into the cave’s environment. “We examined the cave from two perspectives: one of discovery to characterize the microbial community and the other of conservation, being careful to minimize our impact on the beautiful and delicate cave system.

“The freedom that we are gaining to access Raccoon Mountain Caverns automatically presents another project for me to pursue,” he continued. “There’s such rich ecological diversity, not just microbial within a cave system, that I could envision research projects of interest for many of our faculty—which would then trickle down to student experience in trying to make discoveries in a subterranean environment.”

Student research and learning opportunities

Assistant Professor Ashley Manning-Berg, a low-temperature geochemist and sedimentologist, is eager to involve students in research opportunities at the cave.

“I’ve had students go in and look at water pollution within the cave, trying to see if they could identify types of pollutants in the water,” Manning-Berg said of past Raccoon Mountain Caverns research.

“The most recent work I’ve done has involved looking at microplastics, both in the commercial section of the cave and in the wild sections of the cave, and trying to identify if the commercial side had more microplastics present because there are more people.”

Manning-Berg sees the cave as a unique natural laboratory that offers immense teaching and research potential.

“First and foremost, with research projects, those are pathways for students to get careers or jobs because they are able to demonstrate that they can take an idea and help construct projects and then actually do the project and complete them,” she said. “Caves are sexy. Students really like caves, so getting them into a cave helps a lot with teaching even some of the basic things that I teach already—but it’s in an environment that they’re interested in.”

She added that studying Raccoon Mountain Caverns not only allows students to work with real-world examples of geological processes but also expands her own teaching regimen.

“I’ve wanted to teach a carbonate geochemistry course for a long time,” she said, “and caves and karsts go right along with it. It provides a whole other opportunity to take students in and show them the features of the cave.”

Unique species found in the cave

Raccoon Mountain Caverns is home to a number of rare and endangered species—many of which are uniquely adapted to the cave’s dark, isolated environment—making it a vital site for biodiversity research.

Among the most significant discoveries is the Crystal Caverns cave spider (Nesticus furtivus), which, as Perlaky explained, has “been isolated in this cave at least 5 million years to evolve into its own species.”

“It’s fascinating that these creatures in the cave … how many ice ages have come and gone, and they’ve survived them,” Perlaky said.

These long-term evolutionary developments highlight the richness of the cave’s ecosystem, he said. Beyond the spiders, Perlaky spoke with awe about the incredible biodiversity.

“There are many, many species in the cave,” he said. “In order for the spider to survive, there had to be other species for it to prey on—the insects that get captured.”

Much of the cave’s biodiversity remains underexplored, which is one of the reasons Perlaky pointed to in donating Raccoon Moutain Caverns to UTC. He hopes future research will unlock ecological secrets—from understanding spider diets to cataloging new species.

“We’ve tried ascertaining what the spider eats, but we haven’t seen them eat,” Perlaky said. “This is where I’m hoping research with cameras and infrared will help us see what the spider eats.”

In addition to the spiders, the cave supports a range of species—from blind cave beetles and millipedes to salamanders and bats. The presence of these species—and the complex food web within the cave—offers immense potential for discoveries in evolutionary biology.

“There are things we can only discover here that could potentially benefit medical science; that’s what I’d like to see happen,” he said.

Perlaky has compiled a detailed list of many of the species he’s learned of through his 30 years of owning the caverns, including (but not limited to):

Spiders and arachnids: Nesticus furtivus, pseudoscorpions, opiliones (harvestmen)
Cavefish: grotto sculpin
Insects: Pseudanophthalmus digitus and Pseudanophthalmus fulleri cave beetles, millipedes, cave crickets, blind cave centipedes, blind white millipedes
Salamanders: cave salamanders, slimy salamanders, red back salamanders, Tennessee cave salamanders
Bats: several species, including the federally endangered Indiana gray bat
Bacteria and fungi: plaques of actinomyces that may contribute to cave formation, mushrooms
Amphipods, copepods, gastropods and isopods: blind white crayfish, cave shrimp, snails
Worms: flatworms

The presence of these species and numerous fossilized skeletons within its system underscores the cave’s ecological importance—as many of these organisms cannot be found elsewhere.

“We can drive out to the cave, conduct research and be back on campus all within a few hours,” Brock-Hon said. “That’s a luxury most universities don’t have. But this isn’t just a field trip location—it’s a fully integrated research site where students and faculty can conduct long-term studies.”