Copied from the park website:
Copied from:
(
visit link)
Welcome to Florida Caverns State Park
This is one of the few state parks with dry (air filled) caves and is the only Florida state park to offer cave tours to the public. The cave has dazzling formations of limestone stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws, flowstones, and draperies. Florida Caverns is also popular for camping, swimming, fishing, picnicking, canoeing, boating, hiking, bicycling, and horseback riding (The park does not rent horses). Stables are available for equestrian campers. Cave tour lasts approximately 45 minutes and are considered to be moderately strenuous. An audiovisual program, touring the cave and other natural areas of the park, is available in the visitor center. Located three miles north of Marianna on State Road 166.
Contact the Florida Park Service Information Center for general inquiries.
The cave is currently closed on Tuesdays and Wenedsdays to preverse the cave.
For Information about Florida Caverns State Park, please call 850-482-9598. "
Hours 8am to sunset
Florida Caverns State Park is located 3 Miles North of Marianna, Off of U.S. 90 on S.R. 166. From Tallahassee: Take I-10 west to exit 142, turn right on Hwy 71 N to Hwy 90, turn left. Follow brown park signs. From Pensacola: Take I-10 East to exit 136, turn left on Hwy 276 N to Hwy 90, turn right. Follow brown park signs.
Official State Park Address:
3345 Caverns Road
Marianna, Florida 32446
Phone: 850-482-9598
Copied from the downloadable park brochure: (
visit link)
"The park’s caves have a long and interesting
geologic history starting approximately 38
million years ago. Sea levels were much higher
then today. The southeastern coastal plain of
the United States was submerged. Shells, coral
and sediments gradually accumulated on the sea
floor. As sea levels fell, these materials hardened
into limestone. Over the last million years, acidic
groundwater dissolved crevices just below the
surface creating cave passages large enough to
walk through.
Dazzling stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone
and other fragile cave-drip formations were
created over tens of thousands of years by a
similar dissolving process by naturally acidic
rainwater. The park’s bluffs, caves and springs
are called karst terrain. Blind cave crayfish, cave
salamanders, three species of cave roosting bats
live in these caves.
Florida Caverns State Park has ten distinct natural
communities: upland glade, upland hardwood
forest, upland mixed forest, floodplain forest,
floodplain swamp, alluvial stream, spring run
stream, aquatic cave, and terrestrial cave. Some
of these communities are greatly influenced
by their elevation above the Chipola River. The
floodplain forest is characterized by bald cypress,
tupelo, swamp chestnut oak, lizard’s tail and
spider lilies. Just above the floodplain is one of
the best examples of an upland hardwood forest
in the state. Visitors can walk among huge spruce
pine, white ash, Florida elm, southern magnolia,
American beech, black walnut and needle palms."