A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word cave can refer to smaller openings such as sea caves, rock shelters, and grottos, that extend a relatively short distance into the rock and they are called exogene caves. Caves which extend further underground than the opening is wide are called endogene caves.
A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as vrtače and shakeholes, and to openings where surface water enters into underground passages known as ponor, swallow hole or swallet. A cenote is a type of sinkhole that exposes groundwater underneath. Sink and stream sink are more general terms for sites that drain surface water, possibly by infiltration into sediment or crumbled rock.
A stalagmite is a type of rock formation that rises from the floor of a cave due to the accumulation of material deposited on the floor from ceiling drippings. Stalagmites are typically composed of calcium carbonate, but may consist of lava, mud, peat, pitch, sand, sinter, and amberat.
A spring is a natural exit point at which groundwater emerges out of the aquifer and flows onto the top of the Earth's crust (pedosphere) to become surface water. It is a component of the hydrosphere, as well as a part of the water cycle. Springs have long been important for humans as a source of fresh water, especially in arid regions which have relatively little annual rainfall.
Luray Caverns, previously Luray Cave, is a cave just west of Luray, Virginia, United States, which has drawn many visitors since its discovery in 1878. The cavern system is adorned with speleothems such as columns, mud flows, stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, and mirrored pools. The caverns host the Great Stalacpipe Organ, a lithophone made from solenoid-fired strikers that tap stalactites of varied sizes to produce tones similar to those of xylophones, tuning forks, or bells.
A cenote is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater. The term originated on the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, where cenotes were commonly used for water supplies by the ancient Maya, and occasionally for sacrificial offerings. The term derives from a word used by the lowland Yucatec Maya—tsʼonoʼot—to refer to any location with accessible groundwater.
Aranđelovac is a town and a municipality located in the Šumadija District of central Serbia. As of 2011, the municipality has a population of 46,225 inhabitants, while the town has 24,797 inhabitants.
The Floridan aquifer system, composed of the Upper and Lower Floridan aquifers, is a sequence of Paleogene carbonate rock which spans an area of about 100,000 square miles (260,000 km2) in the southeastern United States. It underlies the entire state of Florida and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
The Windover Archeological Site is a Middle Archaic archaeological site and National Historic Landmark in Brevard County near Titusville, Florida, United States on the central east coast of the state. Windover is a muck pond where skeletal remains of 168 individuals were found buried in the peat at the bottom of the pond. The skeletons were well preserved because of the peat. In addition, remarkably well-preserved brain tissue has been recovered from 91 skulls from the site. DNA from the brain tissue has been sequenced. The collection of human skeletal remains and artifacts recovered from Windover Pond represent among the largest finds of each type from the Archaic Period. It is considered one of the most important archeological sites ever excavated.
The Page–Ladson archaeological and paleontological site (8JE591) is a deep sinkhole in the bed of the karstic Aucilla River that has stratified deposits of late Pleistocene and early Holocene animal bones and human artifacts. The site was the first pre-Clovis site discovered in southeastern North America; radiocarbon evidence suggests that the site dates from 14,200 to 14,550 BP. These dates are roughly 1,000 to 1,500 years before the advent of the Clovis culture. Early dates for Page–Ladson challenge theories that humans quickly decimated large game populations in the area once they arrived.
Tsqaltubo is a spa resort in west-central Georgia. It is the main town of the Tsqaltubo Municipality of the Imereti province. It is known for its radon-carbonate mineral springs, whose natural temperature of 33–35 °C (91–95 °F) enables the water to be used without preliminary heating.
Little Salt Spring is an archaeological and paleontological site in North Port, Florida. The site has been owned by the University of Miami since 1980 with research performed there by the university's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
The Sacred Cenote is a water-filled sinkhole in limestone at the pre-Columbian Maya archaeological site of Chichen Itza, in the northern Yucatán Peninsula. It is located to the north of Chichen Itza's civic precinct, to which it is connected by a 300-metre (980 ft) sacbe, a raised pathway.
Risovača Cave, is situated at the very entrance of the town of Aranđelovac in central Serbia around 17 m (56 ft) above the Kubršnica river valley. It is one of the most important archaeological sites of the Palaeolithic in Serbia besides the Gradac Cave near Kragujevac. Its discovery confirmed the assumed existence of the Paleolithic culture south of the Sava-Danube line and provided new information on the life of prehistoric humans in Europe.
Devil's Den is formed by a karst window, in which the roof over a subterranean river has collapsed, exposing the water to the open surface, near Williston, Florida. It is privately owned, and operated as a SCUBA diving training and recreational facility.
The Mammoth Site is a museum and paleontological site near Hot Springs, South Dakota, in the Black Hills. It is an active paleontological excavation site at which research and excavations are continuing. The facility encloses a prehistoric sinkhole that formed and was slowly filled with sediments during the Pleistocene era. The sedimentary fill of the sinkhole contains the remains of Pleistocene fauna and flora preserved by entrapment and burial within a sinkhole. As of 2016, the remains of 61 mammoths, including 58 North American Columbian and 3 woolly mammoths had been recovered. Mammoth bones were found at the site in 1974, and a museum and building enclosing the site were established. The museum now contains an extensive collection of mammoth remains.
The Cutler Fossil Site (8DA2001) is a sinkhole near Biscayne Bay in Palmetto Bay, Florida, which is south of Miami. The site has yielded bones of Pleistocene animals and bones as well as artifacts of Paleo-Indians and people of the Archaic period.
Lt. Col. William Robert Royal was an American scuba diver in the United States Air Force and amateur archeologist. In the late 1950s, he and other scuba divers found artifacts and human bones from at least seven individuals in Warm Mineral Springs. A partially burned log found in association with some of the human bones was radiocarbon dated to about 10,000 years ago. If the bones were the same age as the log, then the bones were the oldest known evidence of human occupation in Florida at the time.
Mud Hole Spring is an unusual warm-water, submarine discharge of water off the southwestern Gulf Coast of Florida, at 26°15′51″N82°01′02″W, approximately 18.5 kilometres (11.5 mi) south of the Sanibel Island Light and Lee County, Florida. It discharges geothermally warmed and turbid water from the sea floor.
The Warm Mineral Springs Building Complex consists of three historic buildings built in 1959 in the Warm Mineral Springs park in North Port, Florida. The buildings include a Park Spa Building, a sales building attached to the Spa Building, and a Cyclorama which contained an exhibit depicting Ponce de Leon's alleged discovery of the Fountain of Youth. The three buildings were added to the park facilities to house a Florida Quadricentennial celebration, which ran from December 14, 1959, to March 15, 1960. The Spa Building and the Cyclorama were designed by Jack West, a leader of the Sarasota School of Architecture. The buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.
