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Speleology
Speleology is the scientific study and exploration of caves; including the surveying, mapping and cartography of caves and reporting on the flora and fauna found in them. The Speleology topic includes questions related to the geology, biology, chemistry, archaeology, hydrogeology,and karst topography of caves; the history of and trivia about specific caves; and published findings related to the research of those who study caves called Speleologists.
1,219 Questions
Why are there so many caves in limestone rock?
Limestone is a type of rock that is easily eroded by water, which can create caves over time. Water dissolves the limestone rock to form caves through a process known as chemical weathering. Additionally, limestone can also be carved out by underground rivers or other natural forces, resulting in the formation of caves.
What process hollows out limestone caves?
How Caves Form in Limestone
That is such a common question on ‘Answers’ I wrote this single reply! The technical terms are introduced by capital initials.
Most of the world’s caves are in Limestone.
Caves need three materials: a soluble rock like Limestone or Gypsum, water and Carbon-dioxide (CO2).
Their host limestone also needs to be of appropriate physical structure and raised into hills, then subjected to reasonably consistent precipitation for many tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock of which the world’s greater proportion was laid down in warm, relatively shallow, seas. The rock was laid in horizontal layers – Beds – separated by Bedding-planes which generally reflect geologically-brief changes in the environment. The suite of beds is known as a Formation, generally named after its “type area”.
Later continental uplift (tectonic processes) raise the formation along with its underlying rocks, usually tilting and folding it to at least some extent in the process. Since most rocks are brittle they cannot take much stress, and limestone beds crack into grids of fine fractures called Joints. The uplift and folding often also causes Faulting – major breaks with the rock mass one side of the Fault Plane being raised, lowered or moved horizontally past that on the opposite side. (Note: Plane – the “Fault Line” sometimes misused as a political metaphor is that of the fault-plane cutting the land surface.)
Now we have the hills, next we need rain-water that has absorbed atmospheric CO2 to create Carbonic Acid (weak, natural soda water in fact!). It may be augmented by acids from the soil, too. This solvent permeates through all those joints, bedding-planes and faults; flowing very, very slowly under considerable pressure applied by its depth, from its sinks on the surface to its springs at the base of the formation. In doing so, it dissolves the limestone (chemical weathering), creating meshes of tiny micro-conduits that over many tens of thousands of years coalesce and capture each other to form cave passages.
Once this happens, the rate of erosion can increase – though still to perhaps only a few millimetres per thousand years under generally temperate climates.
A cave, or a series within a cave system, that still carries its formative stream is called “Active”, and is still being developed.
Surface changes such as the valley floor being lowered by erosion, or down-cutting within the cave by its stream, changes the water’s route and the original, now dried-out, stream-way is called “Fossil” or “Abandoned”. Such passages may be filled with silt left by floods as the main flow gradually abandons them; or may become richly decorated with Speleothems – calcite deposits such as stalactites and stalagmites precipitated from ground-water still oozing through the joints in the limestone above the cave. In time such passages may start to break down as there is no stream to dissolve away slabs falling from the roof as permeating ground-water attacks the rock above.
In the end, surface lowering of the landscape as a whole, breaches and destroys the cave. Nothing is permanent in Nature!
Caves in limestone are also parts of Karst Landscape. i.e. a landscape developed by the dissolution of limestone, giving surface features like Dolines, Limestone Pavement, and in the tropics, distinctive hills such as those represented in Chinese Willow-pattern images. ‘Karst’ is from the Slavic word ‘Kras’, the name for its world type-area.
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The above is purely an introduction to a vastly more complex and subtle series of processes, of course, and you need to refer to appropriate text-books on geology and cave studies to learn them.
The scientific study of caves is Speleology – embracing geology, hydrology, biology, archaeology and other disciplines.
Simply visiting caves to enjoy them for their scenery and the physical and mental challenges they present, is called Caving, though you can’t study a cave unless you can negotiate its obstacles. The enthusiasts are simply Cavers throughout the English-speaking world – not the old slang word “spelunkers” sometimes repeated on ‘Answers’.They are not as a general rule, because caves don't contain economic minerals - apart from their host limestone.
In the past, metal-ore mines occasionally broke into natural caves by accident,such as in the Peak District of the English Midlands (18-19C lead mining).
Why are there so many caves in the limestone rock?
It is all thanks to the rock's solubitlity in water, but cave development in any give limestone region is also controlled by the specific geology, hydrology, geomorphology and continued precipitation over 10s or 100s of 1000s of years.
What people played at the Cavern Club?
The Cavern Club in Liverpool was famous for showcasing bands from the Merseybeat era, which included acts like The Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and The Searchers. These bands played rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and early pop music to crowds of enthusiastic fans.
Where is Jogimara Cave situated?
Jogimara Cave is situated in the Rajgir hills of Bihar, India. It is an important archaeological site and is known for its rock-cut architecture and inscriptions dating back to the reign of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka.
How to get ortion cavern side quest in tales of the abyss?
In Tales of the Abyss, you can trigger the Portion Cavern side quest by speaking to a man in Chesedonia after you reach a certain point in the main story. He will mention a hidden passageway in the city. Find the hidden passageway and enter it to start the quest.
Does weakly acid groundwater dissolves sandstone to form caves?
Weakly acidic groundwater can slowly dissolve minerals like calcite in sandstone, but it typically does not create large caves in sandstone formations. Sandstone is more resistant to dissolution compared to limestone, which is more commonly associated with cave formation due to its high solubility in acidic water. Sandstone may exhibit some minor features like dissolution pockets or small cavities, but it is not a common host rock for the development of extensive cave systems.
What do cave man paint on caves?
Cave paintings created by prehistoric humans typically depict animals, hunting scenes, and daily life activities. These paintings often served a cultural or ritualistic purpose, possibly related to spiritual beliefs or communication within the community. The images were commonly produced using natural pigments such as charcoal and ochre.
Natural subterranean cavities, generally taken as thoselarge enough for humans to enter. They come in different flavours but the vast majority are formed in limestone by ground-water dissolving the rock - a vastly over-simpliifed description of the processbut that's the basic principle!
How do underground caves change over time?
Why do so many questioners add the adjective "underground"?
If they are "active" passages, i.e. still carrying their formative streams, they slowly enlarge.
"Fossil", or "abandoned" passages (left after the stream has found another course or disappeared altogether) can accumulate large deposits of calcite formations (stalactites etc) but in time start to decay as percolating water weakens the rock above the roof.
In time, sub-aeriel weathering removes the surrounding hill-side and the cave itself is destroyed with it.
Since the vast majoroty of the world's caves are in limestone:
How Caves Form in Limestone
That is such a common question on ‘Answers’ I wrote this single reply! The technical terms are introduced by capital initials.
Most of the world’s caves are in Limestone.
Caves need three materials: a soluble rock like Limestone or Gypsum, water and Carbon-dioxide (CO2).
Their host limestone also needs to be of appropriate physical structure and raised into hills, then subjected to reasonably consistent precipitation for many tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock of which the world’s greater proportion was laid down in warm, relatively shallow, seas. The rock was laid in horizontal layers – Beds – separated by Bedding-planes which generally reflect geologically-brief changes in the environment. The suite of beds is known as a Formation, generally named after its “type area”.
Later continental uplift (tectonic processes) raise the formation along with its underlying rocks, usually tilting and folding it to at least some extent in the process. Since most rocks are brittle they cannot take much stress, and limestone beds crack into grids of fine fractures called Joints. The uplift and folding often also causes Faulting – major breaks with the rock mass one side of the Fault Plane being raised, lowered or moved horizontally past that on the opposite side. (Note: Plane – the “Fault Line” sometimes misused as a political metaphor is that of the fault-plane cutting the land surface.)
Now we have the hills, next we need rain-water that has absorbed atmospheric CO2 to create Carbonic Acid (weak, natural soda water in fact!). It may be augmented by acids from the soil, too. This solvent permeates through all those joints, bedding-planes and faults; flowing very, very slowly under considerable pressure applied by its depth, from its sinks on the surface to its springs at the base of the formation. In doing so, it dissolves the limestone (chemical weathering), creating meshes of tiny micro-conduits that over many tens of thousands of years coalesce and capture each other to form cave passages.
Once this happens, the rate of erosion can increase – though still to perhaps only a few millimetres per thousand years under generally temperate climates.
A cave, or a series within a cave system, that still carries its formative stream is called “Active”, and is still being developed.
Surface changes such as the valley floor being lowered by erosion, or down-cutting within the cave by its stream, changes the water’s route and the original, now dried-out, stream-way is called “Fossil” or “Abandoned”. Such passages may be filled with silt left by floods as the main flow gradually abandons them; or may become richly decorated with Speleothems – calcite deposits such as stalactites and stalagmites precipitated from ground-water still oozing through the joints in the limestone above the cave. In time such passages may start to break down as there is no stream to dissolve away slabs falling from the roof as permeating ground-water attacks the rock above.
In the end, surface lowering of the landscape as a whole, breaches and destroys the cave. Nothing is permanent in Nature!
Caves in limestone are also parts of Karst Landscape. i.e. a landscape developed by the dissolution of limestone, giving surface features like Dolines, Limestone Pavement, and in the tropics, distinctive hills such as those represented in Chinese Willow-pattern images. ‘Karst’ is from the Slavic word ‘Kras’, the name for its world type-area.
@@@@@
The above is purely an introduction to a vastly more complex and subtle series of processes, of course, and you need to refer to appropriate text-books on geology and cave studies to learn them.
The scientific study of caves is Speleology – embracing geology, hydrology, biology, archaeology and other disciplines.
Simply visiting caves to enjoy them for their scenery and the physical and mental challenges they present, is called Caving, though you can’t study a cave unless you can negotiate its obstacles. The enthusiasts are simply Cavers throughout the English-speaking world – not the old slang word “spelunkers” sometimes repeated on ‘Answers’.
What are the rocks formation in caves?
I take it you mean calcite deposits, not the passage morphologies, smaller-scale erosion forms and sediments.
They are principally stalactites and stalagmites, growing from the roof and floor respectively, and variations on them; all formed by calcite precipitated from solution in ground-water entering the cave.
Closest... to where? You forgot to tell us.
Look on a geology map to locate the limestone-bearing area nearest to your reference area (your home or wherever else you mean).
Then try to find out if there are any show-caves in that limestone area - that's the easiest start because you can find that from tourist information, but it's not infallible. My nearest caves are within 10 miles of my home but none are show-caves!
Better perhaps, try finding a caving web-site - the most useful would be to search for caving or karstareas in your country or administrative region.
In most cases, they form in limestone by the rock being dissolved away by rainwater acidified slightly by atmospheric carbon dioxide and acids from the topsoil. Once a conduit has been enlarged enough to take an appreciable stream, mechanical erosion of the stream bed may also occur; but dissolution is still the primary method.
How many caves are there in the Lascaux caves?
Only one natural cave - the Grotte de Lascaux - plus the copy as the original is closed to all but serious research to protect the paintings. The plan I've seen shows the cave as a single passage with a branch off it but that might only be the decorated section. I don't know its true extent.
By the way I'm not quite sure what your question means. A cave is a cave in the singular irrespective of its complexity and number of passages and chambers; although if is part of a system proven passably link two or more caves, they keep their original names as far as the junction between them.
What is a room in a cave called?
A room in a cave is typically referred to as a chamber. Chambers can vary in size, shape, and purpose within a cave system.
Are caves destructive or construstive?
Caves can be both destructive and constructive. Destructive aspects include erosion and collapse that can impact the surrounding landscape. However, caves also have constructive aspects, as they provide habitat for unique ecosystems and can serve as natural resources for shelter and water storage.
The vast majority of the worl'd caves are in limestone.
How Caves Form in Limestone
That is such a common question on ‘Answers’ I wrote this single reply! The technical terms are introduced by capital initials.
Most of the world’s caves are in Limestone.
Caves need three materials: a soluble rock like Limestone or Gypsum, water and Carbon-dioxide (CO2).
Their host limestone also needs to be of appropriate physical structure and raised into hills, then subjected to reasonably consistent precipitation for many tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock of which the world’s greater proportion was laid down in warm, relatively shallow, seas. The rock was laid in horizontal layers – Beds – separated by Bedding-planes which generally reflect geologically-brief changes in the environment. The suite of beds is known as a Formation, generally named after its “type area”.
Later continental uplift (tectonic processes) raise the formation along with its underlying rocks, usually tilting and folding it to at least some extent in the process. Since most rocks are brittle they cannot take much stress, and limestone beds crack into grids of fine fractures called Joints. The uplift and folding often also causes Faulting – major breaks with the rock mass one side of the Fault Plane being raised, lowered or moved horizontally past that on the opposite side. (Note: Plane – the “Fault Line” sometimes misused as a political metaphor is that of the fault-plane cutting the land surface.)
Now we have the hills, next we need rain-water that has absorbed atmospheric CO2 to create Carbonic Acid (weak, natural soda water in fact!). It may be augmented by acids from the soil, too. This solvent permeates through all those joints, bedding-planes and faults; flowing very, very slowly under considerable pressure applied by its depth, from its sinks on the surface to its springs at the base of the formation. In doing so, it dissolves the limestone (chemical weathering), creating meshes of tiny micro-conduits that over many tens of thousands of years coalesce and capture each other to form cave passages.
Once this happens, the rate of erosion can increase – though still to perhaps only a few millimetres per thousand years under generally temperate climates.
A cave, or a series within a cave system, that still carries its formative stream is called “Active”, and is still being developed.
Surface changes such as the valley floor being lowered by erosion, or down-cutting within the cave by its stream, changes the water’s route and the original, now dried-out, stream-way is called “Fossil” or “Abandoned”. Such passages may be filled with silt left by floods as the main flow gradually abandons them; or may become richly decorated with Speleothems – calcite deposits such as stalactites and stalagmites precipitated from ground-water still oozing through the joints in the limestone above the cave. In time such passages may start to break down as there is no stream to dissolve away slabs falling from the roof as permeating ground-water attacks the rock above.
In the end, surface lowering of the landscape as a whole, breaches and destroys the cave. Nothing is permanent in Nature!
Caves in limestone are also parts of Karst Landscape. i.e. a landscape developed by the dissolution of limestone, giving surface features like Dolines, Limestone Pavement, and in the tropics, distinctive hills such as those represented in Chinese Willow-pattern images. ‘Karst’ is from the Slavic word ‘Kras’, the name for its world type-area.
@@@@@
The above is purely an introduction to a vastly more complex and subtle series of processes, of course, and you need to refer to appropriate text-books on geology and cave studies to learn them.
The scientific study of caves is Speleology – embracing geology, hydrology, biology, archaeology and other disciplines.
Simply visiting caves to enjoy them for their scenery and the physical and mental challenges they present, is called Caving, though you can’t study a cave unless you can negotiate its obstacles. The enthusiasts are simply Cavers throughout the English-speaking world –you see “spelunkers” sometimes on ‘Answers’ but it's an old slang word not found in caving literature.. .
What clothing do people wear in caves?
Well they use whatever they can find such as, grass or weeds woven together or animal hydes in the winter to keep warm. It all just depends on where the cave is at and what environment it is in.
What are the caves formed underground?
Caves are typically formed from a combination of natural processes such as erosion by water, chemical weathering, and the dissolving of rock formations like limestone and dolomite. Over time, these processes create underground cavities and passages that can develop into complex cave systems.
Caves formed in limestone by its dissolution by ground-water weakly acidified vbyy absorbed atmospheric CO2..
This covers thevast majority of the world's caves, including huge systems like Mammoth / Flint Ridge (the world's longest)
Talking rocks cavern branson mo admission?
The admission price for visiting Talking Rocks Cavern in Branson, MO is around $18 for adults and $9 for children. Prices may vary based on age and other factors, so it's best to check their official website or contact them directly for the most up-to-date information.
How many Paleolithic caves are thought to be around Lascaux?
There are about 600 Paleolithic caves around Lascaux in France. However, the most famous one is the Lascaux cave itself, known for its prehistoric cave paintings.
What is the food chain of a cave?
Rather limited.
Algae, fungi or bacterial films browsed on by invertebrates that in turn are food for other invertebrates or cave fish and salamanders. When they die their bodies are food for saprophilic bacteria, fungi and invertebrates.
Cave divers have reported a small, predatory, worm-like creature living in the sumps of Cheddar Caves (Somerset, SW England); and presumably other caves. It crawls around on the passage wall, leaving a sticky mucous trail that traps other little creatures.
Roosting animls such as bats and cave-swifts feed outside.
There is a Far Eastern species of snake that lives in caves and feeds on the bats.
