BooksBarbecue
Back Beneath the Dark Ice
Chapters (42)
  1. BENEATH THE DARK ICE
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Acknowledgements
  6. Prologue
  7. One
  8. Two
  9. Three
  10. Four
  11. Five
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-one
  28. Twenty-two
  29. Twenty-three
  30. Twenty-four
  31. Twenty-five
  32. Twenty-six
  33. Twenty-seven
  34. Twenty-eight
  35. Twenty-nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-one
  38. Thirty-two
  39. Epilogue
  40. One
  41. Two
  42. Three

Their beach was narrowing, and they were being forced to walk closer to the water. It was Monica who first noticed the changes.

“It’s getting warmer again, and the stream has stopped flowing, and hey, look.” She pointed into the water. “This is very rare. I’ve only ever heard about it in caving chat rooms.”

It was a strange effect, the stream seemed to float. It looked like a stream on top of another stream.

Matt knelt down to look. “It’s like magic.”

“It’s not magic, you boy scout.” Silex managed to make the normally innocent term sound like a curse. “It’s a natural phenomenon called a thermocline. It’s either where warm water overlies colder water, or where there’s a geologically active floor site. Means it could be toxic as well if hydrogen sulfide is dissolved in the water. This could be more bad news.”

“I don’t think so.” Aimee had also knelt down now. “It’s not warm enough to be a thermocline and there’s no build-up of minerals to suggest there’s sulfide in the water.” Aimee removed a small vial from her backpack and took a sample of the lower water level. She sniffed it and then dipped her finger in. She looked at Alex and winked and put the tip of her finger to the end of her tongue. “Yep, that’s salt.” She got to her feet. “It’s a halocline, which is a stable boundary between seawater and fresh water. They usually occur where an underground river flows towards the sea. Seawater backs up into the cave, and the less dense fresh water flows smoothly above it for a distance. It’s safe.” Aimee picked up a small pebble and tossed it in. Two sets of ripples formed—one set on the surface magically seeming to float above a second set a couple of feet under them.

Monica stood with her hands on her hips. “If it’s salt water meeting the stream’s fresh then that’s good news. We must be going the right way.”

Alex looked at the group. Aimee’s helmet torch was yellowing. He hoped Monica was right; the dark was fast catching up with them.

In another hour the scent of salt could be detected in the air and the stream’s double layer combined into one. Monica had been walking for a while with her head tilted up and she called to the group to stop. “Guys, we need to check something. Could everyone turn their torches off for a few seconds?”