Gypsum Caves and Mines

Gypsum is not too frequent, and it is soluble to water, so weathering is very fast. Still, there are some karst areas in gypsum on the World, with caves and other karst features. Gypsum caves are karst caves. They are formed by water weathering the gypsum.

• Gypsum Caves
• White Cave, ca
• Grotte du Crête de Vaas, ch
• Lac Souterrain St-Léonard, ch
• Incirli Cave, cy
• Barbarossahöhle, de
• Heimkehle, de
• Kalkberghöhle Segeberg, de
• Zwergenkirche, de
• Bergbaumuseum Röhrigschacht, de
• Grotte di Onferno, it
• Grotta della Spipola, it
• Grotta della Tanaccia, it
• Pestera Emil Racovita, md
• Kungur ledenica pestera, ru
• Ordinskaya Peschtera, ru
• Mlynky Cave, ua
• Verteba Pestera, ua
• Kristalnaja pestera, ua
• Optymistychna, Ukraine
• Alabaster Caverns State Park, us
• Selman Bat Cave, us

In gypsum karst you can find the same set of karst features you can find in limestone karst.

• Gypsum Karst
• Gypsum Karst Southern Harz, de
• Nixsee valley, de
• Salzaspring, de
• Rhumequelle, de
• Bodenloses Loch, de
• Blue Lake, Podlubovo, ru
• Krasny Klutch Spring, ru
• Big Basin, us

Gypsum is also a valuable good, used e.g. for building houses, so there are some mines in Gypsum. But sometimes the gypsum was just an easy way to get to the valuables below.

• Gypsum Mines
• Seegrotte, at
• Gipsbergwerk Oberwiesen, ch
• Marienglashöhle, de
• Dekor 1 Gypsum Mine, ru

Gypsum is a very soft stone, so it is easy to build big chambers inside this rock. It was used for cave houses, bunkers and underground factories.

• Subterranea
• Mittelbau Dora, de
• Sviatohirsk Lavra, ua