Springs Eternal: Florida's Fountain of Youth

Long ago, Spanish explorers searched Florida in vain, hoping to find the Fountain of Eternal Youth. What they found instead was a treasure for our times - springs, rising clear and pure from the ground. These warm springs support a complex community of human and animal life above and below the surface of the waters, even reaching out into the sea, where the boundaries between salt and fresh water merge, creating natural gateways for wildlife.

Advances in dive technology are only now allowing intrepid divers to explore the lightless, airless networks of underground caves formed by the springs. The risks are great -dozens of divers have lost their lives in the deadly mazes. Still, the magic of the place is powerful; life forms entirely new to science await. Here, clouds of bacteria take the place of light to support the chain of life, and blind crayfish live for more than a hundred years, twenty times longer than their surface cousins. Perhaps the fountain of youth is to be found here after all.