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Photograph by Stephen Alvarez
A cave explorer, called a spelunker, begins a 1,234-foot (376-meter) descent into Sótano de las Golondrinas, a cave in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. The cave's entrance is the second deepest in the world, so the trip is dangerous even for experienced explorers. -
Photograph by Stephen Alvarez
Explorers found this skeleton in the Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave in Cayo, Belize. The skeleton is probably the remains of a victim of Maya human sacrifice, which was practiced thousands of years ago. -
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Photograph by Stephen Alvarez
Ancient Maya people created handprints on the walls of Handprint Cave in Belize by blowing powdered dye on the wall around their hands. -
Photograph by Stephen Alvarez
A caver descends into Hytop Drop, a 98-foot-deep (30-meter-deep) pit in the Walls of Jericho, Tennessee. The large, bowl-shaped cave is nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the South. -
Photograph by Sisse Brimberg
In 1940, a group of teenagers discovered this cave in France decorated with prehistoric artwork. Named Lascaux Cave, it contains about 600 paintings of animals. Some of these paintings are more than 17,000 years old! -
Photograph by Stephen Alvarez
A cave explorer examines the Majlis al Jinn cave in Oman to see if it is safe for tourists to enter. This cave is as deep as a 50-story building is tall. It's one of the largest caves in the world. -
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Photograph by Bobby Model
Some caves form in glaciers or on snow-covered mountains, like this ice cave on Mount Kenya, the highest mountain in Kenya. Ice caves are cold and icy all year-round, not just in winter. -
Photograph by Stephen Alvarez
Razor-sharp limestone formations hang from the ceiling of the Tardis Cave in Borneo. It takes millions of years for these pointy stone icicles to form.
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