The Warsaw Caves Conservation Area and Campground takes its name from a series of seven caves found in the park. The caves were formed thousands of years ago at the end of the last ice age by the rushing melt waters of a glacier that covered Ontario.
All you need is a flashlight or a headlamp and you can spend a couple of hours or the whole day exploring the caves. Wear clothes you don't mind dirtying and close fitting shoes.
Cave #1 180'
Cave #2 300'
Cave #3 130'
Cave #4 285'
Cave #5 290'
Cave #6 105'
"How were the caves formed?
The Warsaw area is characterized by limestone bedrock formed in the Paleozoic era seas that covered the entire region over 350 million years ago. This bedrock was shaped through a series of Pleistocene epoch glaciations, including the Wisconsin ice age which ended 10,000 years ago.
At the height of this ice age 20,000 years ago much of Ontario was covered in sheets of ice two to three kilometers thick. When these glaciers began to retreat 12,000 years ago, meltwaters created pre-
historic Lake Algonquin (the present-day upper Great Lakes and Lake Simcoe) and Lake Iroquois (present-day Lake Ontario). The flow of glacial meltwater from Lake Algonquin to Lake Iroquois formed the Kirkfield Spillway, which included the Indian and Otonabee Rivers. The
ancient rivers were very different from the shallow, placid Indian River of today, being more like the modern-day Niagara River. The deep, swift, glacier-fed river shaped the landscape found within the
conservation area, leaving behind caves, kettles, limestone cliffs and ledges, underground channels and other interesting natural features.
The caves were created by the chemical erosion of the limestone bedrock. Limestone has a distinctive crystal structure and it will fracture and crack in a specific pattern. As the ancient river flowed over the bedrock it made its way into and through these cracks. High carbon dioxide levels made the river water slightly acidic and it
dissolved the limestone over thousands of years, widening the natural cracks and fissures in the rock. In time the river was flowing both over and through the bedrock, in its surface bed and in underground channels. This type of landscape is known as karst topography.
As the glaciers retreated, the weight of ice carried by the bedrock lessened and it rose up in a process known as isostatic rebound. The shifting of the bedrock and continued erosion caused the collapse of underground river channels, leaving behind a series of caves and the
broken limestone landscape we see now. The site is geologically stable today and the rebound of the bedrock means there is no longer water flowing through the caves, although there are still many underground rivers flowing through the area. " (
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