February 26, 2009
global warming induced fungus threatens the caves of Lascaux
Black stains have spread across the cave’s prehistoric murals of bulls, felines and other images, and scientists have been hard-pressed to halt the fungal creep.
“All of Lascaux’s problems have always been linked to the cave’s climatization, meaning the equilibrium of air inside the cave,” Gaulthier told reporters at a news conference before the symposium. Now, rising temperatures have complicated matters by stopping air from circulating inside the caverns, he said.
“It’s stagnating, immobile, frozen” inside the cave, he said.
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