page_title: Cave
section_title: Sea or littoral
hierarchical_section_title: Cave / Formation types / Sea or littoral
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo by Dave Bunnell of Painted Cave, Santa Cruz Island, California. This is one of the world's longest known sea caves.Note the fault line along which the cave was formed, upper left of entrance.
context_page_description: A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word cave can also refer to much smaller openings such as sea caves, rock shelters, and grottos, though strictly speaking a cave is exogene, meaning it is deeper than its opening is wide, and a rock shelter is endogene.
  Speleology is the science of exploration and study of all aspects of caves and the cave environment. Visiting or exploring caves for recreation may be called caving, potholing, or spelunking.
context_section_description: Sea caves are found along coasts around the world. A special case is littoral caves, which are formed by wave action in zones of weakness in sea cliffs. Often these weaknesses are faults, but they may also be dykes or bedding-plane contacts. Some wave-cut caves are now above sea level because of later uplift. Elsewhere, in places such as Thailand's Phang Nga Bay, solutional caves have been flooded by the sea and are now subject to littoral erosion. Sea caves are generally around 5 to 50 metres (16 to 164 ft) in length, but may exceed 300 metres (980 ft).
caption: Painted Cave, a large sea cave, Santa Cruz Island, California
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