The Biggest Speleothems of the World


This is definitely not a ranking. It is just a list of extraordinary big speleothems of various kinds. Most of them are located in wild caves which are not open to the public, so they are not listed on showcaves.com.

We would have liked to show pictures, but unfortunately these extraordinary places are only accessible to a few people, good pictures are rare and always under copyright protection. That’s why we have tried to link pictures, but with the current domain death such links quickly become invalid, and after a few years only 2 of 12 links were still valid. However, we would like to recommend visiting Dave Bunnell’s site linked below. He is a great cave photographer and has taken many of these pictures.


Type Size Cave Location Explanation
Speleothemsoda straw 9.13 m Wonder Cave Gunung Mulu, Malaysia Longest single soda straw
Speleothemsoda straw 9.03 m Unnamed Cave Mexico Longest soda straw group, several straws over 8 m in the group
Speleothemsoda straw 5.43 m ShowcaveJewel Cave Australia The longest soda straw in an Australian show cave (probably worldwide)
Speleothemrimstone pools 22 m Actun Kotob Belize Tallest rimstone dam
Speleothemrimstone pools 61 m ShowcaveTham Xe Bang Fai Laos Longest rimstone dam
Speleothemrimstone pools L=610 m, H=20 m CaveWadi Sannur Cave Egypt Longest single rimstone dam formed on the surface. Wadi Sannur is a rare type of cave formed by roofing over of a giant surface rimstone dam at its spillover point. The rimstone dam was formed by a large thermal spring.
Speleothemrimstone pools 400 m ShowcaveTinazTepe Mağarları Turkey Longest connected rimstone pool series
Speleothemcave formation 150 m CaveLechuguilla Cave New Mexico, U.S.A. Flowstone cascade with greatest vertical extent, Neverland to Dead Sea
Speleothemcave formation 17,700 m CaveFort Stanton Cave New Mexico, U.S.A. Longest continuous formation, white calcite crust in a stream channel named Snowy River Passage
Speleothemgypsum 1.98 m Double Bopper Cave Arizona, U.S.A. Longest gypsum flower petal (supported)
Speleothemgypsum 11 m CaveCave of Swords Mexico Longest selenite crystal
SpeleothemCave Pearl 290 m² CaveGruta de las Canicas Mexico Some 200 million cave pearls cover the cave floor to a depth of more than a meter on 290 m², which makes this the biggest deposit of cave pearls.