Where caverns show their crystals

Caves grow calcite, aragonite, gypsum, and other minerals as dripstone and spar. This list is public pages: parks, USGS, and cavern operators. Hours, tickets, and tour rules live on those pages. Open the operator site before you drive. Leave formations where they grew.

Florida cave geology, from the park pages

Florida Caverns State Park in Marianna is the in-state show cave Florida State Parks opens to tours. The park page describes limestone and calcite formations in a dry-enough chamber for a walking tour, a rare thing on a peninsula built of karst. Devil’s Millhopper Geological State Park near Gainesville is a collapse sinkhole you can walk into: the same limestone story, seen from the surface down a stair. Both pages belong to Florida State Parks. Neither page is a collecting permit.

USGS: caves form when slightly acidic water dissolves limestone and related rock. Speleothems, stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, are mineral deposits from that water. That is the geology behind both Florida stops and the out-of-state parks below. Fun to walk. Geology first. No locality list for pocket specimens.

• Florida Caverns State Park

  Marianna, Florida. Florida State Parks. The in-state cave with public tours. Calcite formations in limestone. Check the park page for current access.

• Devil’s Millhopper Geological State Park

  Gainesville, Florida. Florida State Parks. A collapse sinkhole you can walk into. Karst on the surface, close to Orlando as a day geology stop.

• Carlsbad Caverns National Park

  National Park Service. Famous chambers and dripstone. The park site has geology, tours, and access.

• Mammoth Cave National Park

  National Park Service. Longest known cave system. Limestone, gypsum, and park geology pages.

• Jewel Cave National Monument

  National Park Service. Named for calcite spar that lines the walls. Monument pages cover the mineral story.

• Kartchner Caverns State Park

  Arizona State Parks. Living cave with soda straws and wet formations. Operator is the state park system.

• Luray Caverns

  Virginia. Commercial cavern operator. Calcite, flowstone, and the well-known organ. Hours and tickets on the operator site.

• USGS · How do caves form?

  U.S. Geological Survey FAQ on cave and karst formation. The science page behind the tours.

Bring a loupe if you like close looks at calcite. Leave the formations where they grew. After the walk, the goods shop is décor and jewelry. Not a cavern souvenir shop we run.