Return to Cave Journey Home Page
Who Lives in Caves? How Do Animals Adapt to Living in Caves? How Do Cave Animals Relate to Each Other? What is the Geology of a Cave? How & Why Would You Study a Cave? How Can I Help Conserve Caves?
Go to the Geology Room
Go to What Are Caves?
Go to Where Are Caves?
Go to How Do Caves Form?
Go to How Does Rainfall
Go to Sulfuric Acid
Go to Flowing Lava
Go to How Caves Are Decorated?
Rainfall
Diana Northup to the right of a rimstone dam that filled with water from recent rainstorm.
Click on the Picture for Larger Image
Caves formed from rainfall are called epigenic caves. Epigenic caves are formed in the following way:

Step one: Rain seeps into the surface of the earth.

Step two: The gas, carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), is released by dying vegetation in the soil.

Step three: The rainwater absorbs the carbon dioxide ( CO 2 ).

Step four: A chemical reaction begins that makes the water into a weak carbonic acid .

Step five: The carbonic acid eats away at rock by dissolving the limestone.

Step six: A cave passage is formed.

Look what happened in Hidden Cave after a rainstorm, pretty easy to see how rain helped form this cave!
Diana Northup to the right of a rimstone dam that filled with water from recent rainstorm.
Click on the Picture for Image Information

If you'd like to see an animation of this, go to:

http://earthsci.terc.edu/content/visualizations/es1405/es
1405page01.cfm?chapter_no=visualization

Click on the Link(s) Below to Learn (About)...

How Sulfuric Acid Helps Caves Form
------
How Flowing Lava Helps Caves Form

OR

Click on the Link(s) Below to Learn (About)...

What Caves Are
------
Where Caves Are
------
How Caves Form
------
How Caves Are Decorated