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caving
EntityQ200341· pop 28· linked from 881 articles

Also known as potholing, spelunking, speleology, cave exploration, amateur speleology

thumb|Caving in a muddy section of Black Chasm Cave in [[California|alt=A man caving in muddy passage with helictite formations on the walls and ceiling]] thumb|220px|upright|Stephens Gap, a vertical cave in Alabama

~19 min read

Encyclopedic overview

9 sections
Contents
  • Motivation
  • Etymology
  • History
  • Practice and equipment
  • Safety
  • Cave conservation
  • Caving organizations
  • See also
  • References

thumb|Caving in a muddy section of Black Chasm Cave in [[California|alt=A man caving in muddy passage with helictite formations on the walls and ceiling]] thumb|220px|upright|Stephens Gap, a vertical cave in Alabama

Caving, also known as spelunking (United States and Canada) and potholing (United Kingdom and Ireland), is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology is the scientific study of caves and the cave environment.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “caving” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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