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Colossal Cave

Colossal Cave is a cave system in southeastern Arizona, United States, near the community of Vail, about 22 miles (35 km) southeast of Tucson. It contains about 3.9 miles (6.3 km) of mapped passageways. Temperatures inside average 70 °F (21 °C) year-round. Previous names include 'Mountain Springs Cave' and 'Five–Mile Cave'. The cave is an ancient karst cave, classified as "dry" by guides (though this is not a speleologic term). The meaning of this is that its formations are completely dry, or "dead", and do not grow. This is because the cave was formed by water depositing limestone, but this source has disappeared. It instead feeds the "active" nearby Arkenstone Cave that continues to grow formations. Colossal Cave was used from 900 to 1450 AD by the Hohokam, Sobaipuri, and Apache Indians.

Cave data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).

More caves in United States

  1. Lechuguilla Cave489 m deep
  2. Carlsbad Caverns National Park333 m deep
  3. Natural Tunnel State Park0.3 km
  4. Merrill Cave0.2 km
  5. Layser Cave0 km

Other notable caves worldwide

  1. Mammoth Cave · Australia686 km
  2. Sistema Sac Actun · Mexico119.2 m
  3. Lechuguilla Cave · United States489 m
  4. Optymistychna Cave · Ukraine20 m
  5. Veryovkina Cave · Georgia2,212 m
  6. Krubera Cave · Georgia2,199 m
  7. Sarma cave · Georgia1,830 m
  8. Clearwater Cave · Malaysia109 km