cave spicule
A speleothem which consists of a macroscopic acicular mineral crystal, most commonly aragonite, precipitated subaerially from an evaporating capillary or seepage film on a cave surface or coralloid nodule.
Source attestations
| Source | Label / path | Assertions | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| GOLD | Environmental > Terrestrial > Deep subsurface > Cave > Spicules | — |
Broader habitats
- speleothem
ENVO:00000327
Also called
- Spicules
- aragonite spicules
- spicular aragonite
Curation
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CONFIRM_UNGROUNDED
Confirmed UNGROUNDED: no ontology term fits this concept. Variant-match review (#12): the variant route reaches UBERON:3010830 'spicule', which is animal anatomy. The path is Terrestrial > Deep subsurface > Cave, where a spicule is a mineral speleothem — a homonym across kingdoms of the kind that put Coral on a fish. Path: Environmental > Terrestrial > Deep subsurface > Cave > Spicules (source concept habitatmech:GOLD.d1e1435f42)
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DEFINED
Defined as 'cave spicule' under ENVO:00000327 'speleothem'. Definition authored from the record's committed deep-research report under research/habitats/, read in full; no new paid research was commissioned. GOLD's Environmental > Terrestrial > Deep subsurface > Cave > Spicules leaf is interpreted as a cave-mineral speleothem morphotype, not an animal spicule, a sponge spicule microfossil, or a lava-cave filament. ENVO:00000327 'speleothem' is the tightest vendored genus; ENVO lacks coralloid, evaporative, frostwork, anthodite, and moonmilk intermediates. REPLACE drops GOLD's inherited Cave parent because an aragonite spicule is a secondary mineral deposit on a cave surface or coralloid nodule, not a kind of cave. UBERON:3010830 'spicule' and PORO:0000017 'spicule' are homonyms and are deliberately not retained even as xrefs. Upstream assertion volume is 0, the originating GOLD study is unidentified, and no report source directly sequenced objects called spicules.