West Virginia and Pennsylvania each have many significant caves. There is over 250 miles of mapped passages in these 15 caves. There are over 1500 known caves in Pennsylvania. Southwestern Pennsylvania has 6 caves which each have over 1 mile of mapped passages. Our local caves are significant in a number of important ways.
Local caves have world class cave formations.
See Ed McCarthy's Caves of the Virginias site for award winning pictures of local caves and the pictures pages of the MAKC web site. Caves provide homes to many creatures including the endangered Indiana Bat and the threatened Eastern Wood Rat . Archeologic and paleontologic significance. Many local caves contain rich finds of bones of extinct animals. The filtering provided by soil layers is bypassed by the honeycombed holes found in karst areas.