Yes, it really is the case. Different stones react differently to fire. I know my stuff.
Comment on How did living in caves not backfire on cavemen?
Blizzard@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Another thing that sticks out to me is the rule against fire. (…) The heat from fire is enough to interfere with the stone composition, which in turn threatens to collapse a cave.
Is that really the case? I thought it would more about filling the cave with smoke or wasting oxygen, not causing a cave to collapse. Perhaps I was imagining a different cave? Tom Hanks did keep fire in his cave in Cast Away.
Anyway, very interesting subject. I always wanted to have a cave of my own, especially with an entry hidden behind a waterfall :D
shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 8 months ago
wahming@monyet.cc 8 months ago
Never heard about collapsing a cave from heat, but soot from fires would damage a cave’s aesthetics, which is a cardinal sin in spelunking.
shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Yes, so basically picture a cave like a giant jawbreaker. When a jawbreaker is left in the sun (and yes, Mythbusters proved this), the different layers of candy expand at different rates. This causes pressure buildup and eventually explosion.
A cave isn’t all just one solid type of mass, it’s not all a single boulder like many people depict due to the limited coloring of old cartoons. You’ll have many different forms of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rock all around the cave. And a fire is hotter than depicted on TV, that’s the whole point of a campfire (a part of why the original question in the OP intrigued me). So the simple act of starting a fire can cause a chain reaction which destabilizes a cave section and causes a collapse. And with caves being as intriguing as they are, you don’t want to ruin humanity’s chances of finding a cave section.
People upvoting a lot of the confusion-based replies shows both sides here have things they never expected they didn’t know (while downvoting my own confusion-based replies, for whatever weird reason).
wahming@monyet.cc 8 months ago
I wasn’t doubting you about the collapse from fire heat, I just had never heard of it before so wasn’t commenting on that aspect.