How Stalagmites Get Their Shapes

(Trilobites) Plop. Plop. Water drips from stalactites hanging from cave ceilings. Each successive drop adds a thin layer of minerals to a growing stalagmite below. These remarkable structures are found on the floors of caves all over the world. Although they grow only a fraction of an inch each year, they serve as record keepers of past environmental conditions, such as droughts. But while there has been a lot of research focused on how stalactites form, relatively little has been done on sta...