The Woodville Karst Plain is a karst area that runs from

Tallahassee Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2020, the population ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

to the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

separated by the

Cody Scarp The Cody Scarp or Cody Escarpment is located in north and north central Florida United States. It is a relict scarp and ancient persistent topographical feature formed from an ancient early Pleistocene shorelines of ~1.8 million to 10,000 years ...

. This karst plain includes numerous first magnitude springs, including Wakulla- Leon Sinks Cave System, the longest surveyed underwater

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

in the United States extending and ranking #57 among the top 100 longest caves in the world. The WKP is home to five of the 27 reported species of

troglobite A troglobite (or, formally, troglobiont) is an animal species, or population of a species, strictly bound to underground habitats, such as caves. These are separate from species that mainly live in above-ground habitats but are also able to live u ...

s in Florida and South Georgia including Woodville Karst cave crayfish and Swimming Florida cave isopod. Also of interest are the Leon Sinks.Global Underwater Explorers
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Wakulla-Leon Sinks Cave System

Wakulla cave consists of a dendritic network of

conduit Conduit may refer to: Engineering systems * Conduit (fluid conveyance), a pipe suitable for carrying either open-channel or pressurized liquids * Electrical conduit, a protective cover, tube or piping system for electric cables * Conduit curre ...

s of which have been surveyed and mapped. The conduits are characterized as long tubes with diameter and depth being consistent ( depth); however, joining tubes can be divided by larger chambers of varying geometries. The largest conduit trends south from the spring/cave entrance for over . Four secondary conduits, including Leon Sinks intersect the main conduit. Most of these secondary conduits have been fully explored. On Dec 15, 2007, the connection between the Wakulla cave system and Leon Sinks cave system was made by members of the

Woodville Karst Plain Project The Woodville Karst Plain Project or WKPP, is a project and organization that maps the underwater cave systems underlying the Woodville Karst Plain. This plain is a area that runs from Tallahassee, Florida, U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico and includes ...

to establish the ''Wakulla-Leon Sinks Cave System''. This connection established it as the longest underwater cave in the United States and the sixth largest in the world at a total of of surveyed passages.

References

External links

Longest caves in Florida
Landforms of Florida Geography of Florida {{Florida-geo-stub

Wakulla-Leon Sinks Cave System

References

See also

External links