The Plight of Ain Hit

I don't think much has been done over the past year to correct a problem that caver John Pint reported in one of Saudi Arabia's most important underground sites: Dahl Heet or Ain Hit.

An environmental disaster appears to be in the making at the historic Ain Hit cave/sinkhole south of Riyadh. This is where geologist Max Steineke first observed the impermeable anhydrite cap-rock layer that convinced him crude oil had been captured beneath the Eastern Province. Pint reported in February 2011 that the formerly crystal-clear waters of Ain Hit are being polluted by sewage. (The photo above, from the SaudiCaves.com website, was taken in better days, back in 2008.)

Since newly hired Saudi Aramco geologists regularly make a “pilgrimage” to this site to learn the story of Steineke’s achievement and observe the anhydrite layer for themselves, I think Saudi Aramco should take an interest in protecting the site for future generations.

John Pint’s website quotes a visitor to Ain Hit as saying:

Comparing our data with that of the survey of Gregg Gregory and co-workers from 2002, we encountered the water table ca. 27 m higher than in 2008 at our first visit. Two days later we heard from the Ministry of Water and Energy (MOWE) that 7 km to the north, sewage from Riyadh is forming a lake along the escarpment (see Google Earth). Thus Ain Heeth is involuntarily providing us with a karst tracer experiment. At this time it looks like the water table is going to keep on rising and that trillions of bacteria are making a comfortable living down there. Considering the filthy condition of the water and the recent rock falls, the cave has lost its recreational value, having turned into a very obnoxious and quite dangerous place. I doubt that I will make that trip again....

Pint followed up this posting with an email to friends:

From: JohnandSusy Pint

Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 12:26 AM

To: ranchopint hotmail

Subject: Pristine Cave Contaminated by Sewage

Hello friends of the Desert Caves,

Only a few years ago, cave divers in Saudi Arabia were delighted to plunge into the crystal-clear waters of Ain Hit (Ain Heet, Ain Heeth) Cave, but just a few days ago, Dr. Stephan Kempe made a shocking discovery in this cave. The story and pictures are at:

http://www.saudicaves.com/sewage/index.html

I have heard of no progress to date in correcting the problem. I certainly hope plans are in motion at some level to save Dahl Heet. Perhaps the Arabian Natural History Association (ANHA) in Dhahran could follow up on this issue.

Gaia Hypothesis and Edgar Allan Poe

The Gaia hypothesis (now often called the Gaia theory), was formulated by scientists James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. It contends that all living organisms and the inorganic structure of the Earth are integrated in a single, self-regulating system that maintains the conditions for life on the planet. The system includes the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrospheres and pedosphere.

In short, the theory says the Earth acts as if it were a single organism. The hypothesis plays a role in today's ecological/environmental movements.

Edgar Allan Poe gave some thought to the ideas underlying the Gaia hypothesis more than a century before Lovelock and Margulis articulated them. Here are Poe's observations, incorporated into the short story "The Island of the Fay" (1841):

I love, indeed, to regard the dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains that look down upon all,–I love to regard these as themselves but the colossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole–a whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate planets; whose meek handmaiden is the moon, whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose life is eternity, whose thought is that of a God; whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity, whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of the animalculae which infest the brain–a being which we, in consequence, regard as purely inanimate and material much in the same manner as these animalculae must thus regard us.

Poe, incidentally, wrote a major speculation on the universe called "Eureka," described as a prose poem or an essay on the material and spiritual worlds. It can be found here.