The photo below is of some flowstone in a cave in mulu. Flowstone is formed from calcite where water flows down a wall. As the water is agitated, it outgasses it's carbon dioxide leaving behind calcium carbonate, aragonite, gypsum or other minerals that were previously dissolved in the water. (To relate flowstone formation to photo printing, you should leave a print out for 24 – 48 hours before framing behind glass so the moisture in the inks can outgas – fancy word for ‘dry' – properly.) Calcite and aragonite are just different crustal forms of calcium carbonate while gypsum is a calcium sulfate. Other minerals int he rocks can also be deposited and the range of minerals result in the colors in the flowstone.
I don't know which cave this is from. In my archives I've s series of formation slides that fall after Lincon's profile and before an exterior shot of the boardwalk out of Deer Cave, but I wouldn't commit to that as the location.
The average stalactite, stalagmite or flowstone grows at the rate of about 0.13 mm (0.0051 inches) per year – according to Wikipedia, at any rate. Growth depends upon concentration of the dissolved mineral, flow rate of the water and other environmental factors.
The problem when showing photos of flowstone formations is scale. In the photo below on the left hand edge you can just make out a pillar and descending hand rail of a staircase. That's about 3 feet high which makes this flowstone of the order of 15 feet high, just in this image which cuts off way below the ceiling.
Stalactites (hang down), stalagmites (grow up) and flowstone can be easily damaged if touched. The oil from a finger can cause the water to avoid the area which causes it to dry out. The folds in the flowstone comes from some underlying impurity that has caused the water to flow slightly differently at some point in time.
