๐ Planet Earth ๐๏ธ Landforms
Caves
๐ In short
A cave is a big natural hole in the ground or a mountain that a person can go into. Some caves are a small room, and some are a huge network of dark passages and halls stretching many kilometers underground.
๐คฉ Did you know?
- Mammoth Cave in the United States is the longest known cave, hundreds of kilometers long.
- A stalactite can take hundreds of years to grow one centimeter.
- Scientists who explore caves are called speleologists.
- In Jeita Grotto in Lebanon, a river runs underground.
๐ Find out more
๐ How do caves form?
Most caves formed in limestone, where slightly acidic rainwater seeps in and dissolves the rock very slowly over thousands of years, making passages and halls.
๐ Columns of stone
Water drips from a cave's roof carrying dissolved minerals, which slowly build up into columns hanging from the roof, called stalactites, and others rising from the floor, called stalagmites.
๐ก Cave dwellers
Special animals live in caves, like bats, and white fish and insects with no eyes, because they don't need them in total darkness.
๐ฏ Caves and history
Early people lived in caves and painted the animals they hunted on the walls. And the Qur'an tells the story of the people of the cave.
๐ธ More pictures
๐งฉ Test yourself
1 What do we call the columns hanging from a cave's roof?
2 Which animal lives in caves?
3 Which picture shows โCavesโ?
๐ Discover more
๐ท Picture sources: Wikimedia Commons
- Dave Bunnell / Under Earth Images ยท CC BY-SA 2.5
- Dave Bunnell / Under Earth Images ยท CC BY-SA 2.5
- Wilson44691 ยท CC BY-SA 3.0
- Jojo, en:Jojo_1, pl:Jojo ยท CC BY-SA 3.0
