How Deep Can Caves Get?

From MinuteEarth.

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Krubera Cave, one of our planet’s deepest known caves, extends 2200 meters into the earth – that’s a depth of nearly six Empire State Buildings. Or at least, that’s as far down as humans have been able to explore; there might be other undiscovered chambers that go down even farther. But the cave can’t be that much deeper, because there’s a limit – actually, three limits – to how deep caves on Earth can get.

LEARN MORE
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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
– Karst: landscape underlain by limestone which has been eroded by dissolution, producing ridges, towers, fissures, sinkholes and other characteristic landforms.
– Solutional cave: a cave usually formed in a soluble rock like limestone
– Water table: the upper surface of the saturated zone underground, where all the pores and cracks in soil and rock are completely filled with water.

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REFERENCES
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“3D Model of Krubera (Voronja) Cave.” Archive.org, 2025, https://web.archive.org/web/20090401170048/www.network.speleogenesis.info/directory/exploration/krubera.php

Ford, Derek C, and R O Ewers. “The Development of Limestone Cave Systems in the Dimensions of Length and Depth.” Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, vol. 15, no. 11, 1 Nov. 1978, pp. 1783–1798, https://doi.org/10.1139/e78-186

“Karst Hydrology and Physical Speleology : Bögli, Alfred, 1912- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” Internet Archive, 2022, https://archive.org/details/karsthydrologyph0000bogl/page/148/mode/2up

Kohn, Matt. How to Calculate Pressure in Earth’s Crust: Part 1 – Constant Density. https://youtu.be/u5n65OHEoRc?si=gUYFqwlRtxKFa60s

“MatWeb – the Online Materials Information Resource.” https://www.matweb.com/search/datasheet.aspx

“Speleology : The Study of Caves : Moore, George William, 1928- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” Internet Archive, 2025, https://archive.org/details/speleologystudyo00moor/page/150/mode/2up