The water drains underground through vertical cracks and horizontally between layers of limestone and eventually forms sinkholes and caves. The resulting landscape, created by the action of water, is known as a karst landscape. Underground water has carved out Mammoth Cave in long, horizontal passageways over the past several million years. Mammoth Cave s huge vertical shafts, called pits and domes, have been created by groundwater seeping downward through sinkholes or cracks located beyond the edge of the protective hard layer of sandstone that overlies much of the cave. Water also has been essential in decorating parts of the cave with gypsum formations, stalactites, stalagmites, draperies and flowstone.
Water is also vital to the unusual biota, or animal and plant life, of the region.
Above ground and in the cave there are approximately 1,000 kinds of plants and about 500 types of animals. The cave itself abounds with unusual fish, shrimp, crayfish, crickets, spiders, beetles, molds, and mushrooms that live within its cool darkness. Many cave animals, like the blindfish and certain crickets, are blind. Some do not even have eyes. Other animal and plant life lack skin pigments and appear to be entirely white.