Cave landscapes
Where the caves are, what rocks they are in and how they formed.
Overview
Limestone in the Andes
Three pages on the geology behind the caves.
The Andes contain thick beds of limestone that were laid down under the sea and later lifted to great heights. Caves have formed in them from the edge of the Amazon basin up to nearly 5,000 metres.
The pages in this section explain how limestone caves form and describe two cave regions: the cloud forest around Chachapoyas and the high plateaus of central Peru.
771m
height of the Gocta waterfall near Chachapoyas
4,900m
altitude of some of the highest surveyed caves in the Andes
7
regions of Peru represented on this guide
See the sites
Ten caves, rock shelters and cliff tombs are described on their own pages.