Many caves (like the ones here) are caves formed by littoral processes. These types of caves can be spotted up and down the coastline. What we have here is in fact NOT a littoral cave, yet one formed by groundwater erosion. Explanation of 3.5 terrain: to get to GZ, you will have to work a little bit. Enter into the main small cave (watch for sharp rocks!). It seems like there is nowhere to go, yet the back of the cave has a gap than can be crawled under. Once under, the cave opens up into a small space with enough room to sit. This is where you can observe the erosion processes!
Process of groundwater erosion:
As water flows throughout the soil of the land, eroding soft dirt as it goes, it dissolves minerals in the soil it passes through. The minerals in turn make the water slightly acidic, allowing the erosion process to occur more rapidly and eroding harder surfaces. The acid can eat away and dissolve more minerals into the water. These minerals can be deposited elsewhere, known as the process of deposition. Over time, this process of removing particles and depositing them somewhere else casues caverns in the gorund to form. Caves like this one are continuously being eroded by this method (notice that even with low tide the cave ceiling is constantly dripping?). This water, with many minerals, will often be referred to as "hard." This means that there are many dissolved minerals in the water. Some of the minerals can also be deposited inside the cave(s). They can decorate the cave with drip formations. Also commonly seen are stalactites and stalagmites (drip columns from the ceiling and on the floor).
-"Finding" the earthcache-
Send me a note:
1. The name of this earthcache and number of people that entered the cave
2. Is the water cold (it will be hard not to get wet
)? Do you think this is because of the dissolved minerals?
3. Do you see any evidence of stalactites on the ceiling?
4. Please post a picture of the inside of the cave!
Sources:
1). -flaglerschools.com/sites/default/files/groundwater_erosion.pdf