What happens when you click Find Caves
CaveFinder turns publicly available LiDAR elevation data into ranked cave entrance candidates — ready for field verification.
How CaveFinder finds your next lead
Pick your area
Draw a rectangle on the interactive map to define your search area. CaveFinder automatically downloads high-resolution LiDAR elevation data for your selected region.
Coverage includes most of the continental US at 1-meter resolution through the USGS 3D Elevation Program. For areas outside US LiDAR coverage, global satellite DEMs provide 30-meter resolution as a fallback.
Free users can scan up to 5 km² per analysis. Pro users get up to 15 km² — enough to cover an entire ridge system in a single run.
We analyze the terrain
The analysis examines the terrain for features consistent with cave entrances. Each potential feature is scored and ranked by confidence.
The analysis runs entirely on our servers. There's nothing to install, no GIS software required, and no data to download manually. Just draw a box and wait for results.
Processing typically takes 1–3 minutes depending on area size and data resolution.
Explore candidates
Results appear on an interactive map with confidence scores, depth estimates, and terrain visualizations. Click any candidate to see hillshade and slope overlays centered on that location.
Filter by confidence level to focus on the strongest leads, or browse the full list to explore lower-probability targets. Each candidate shows estimated depth, surface area, and a human-readable confidence label from Strong Lead down to Unlikely.
Pro users see all candidates with no limit. Free users get the top 10 ranked by confidence.
Plan your ridgewalk
Pro users can select candidates and generate an optimized walking route between them. The Ridgewalk Planner accounts for terrain difficulty and plots the most efficient path across the landscape.
Export your route as a printable PDF with a topo map overlay, a GPX track for your handheld GPS, and a detailed waypoint list with coordinates and approach notes.
Everything you need to go from screen to field in one step.
What is LiDAR?
LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a remote sensing technology that measures the Earth's surface by bouncing laser pulses off the ground from aircraft. The result is a detailed 3D model of the terrain accurate to within centimeters.
The USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) has been collecting LiDAR data across the US, creating publicly available elevation datasets at 1-meter resolution. This data reveals terrain features that are invisible on traditional topographic maps — subtle depressions, small sinkholes, and surface expressions of underground voids.
CaveFinder accesses this data automatically so you don't need GIS software, specialized knowledge, or terabytes of storage to work with it.
What is a ridgewalk?
A ridgewalk is a systematic survey technique where cavers walk along ridge tops and hillsides looking for sinkholes, depressions, and cave entrances. By staying high, you can spot terrain features that are invisible from below.
CaveFinder's Ridgewalk Planner optimizes this process by plotting the most efficient walking route between your selected detection targets. Instead of wandering a ridge hoping to stumble on something, you're navigating directly to the locations with the highest probability of being worth investigating.
The planner generates a printable PDF with a topographic map, turn-by-turn waypoints, and a GPX track you can load onto your GPS before you leave the trailhead.
What does the analysis look for?
CaveFinder runs 12 detection methods against the LiDAR elevation surface and combines them through 14 calibrated scoring formulas. The full plain-English inventory is on the methodology page.
Not every candidate is a cave — but candidates with high scores are statistically more likely to be worth investigating. The scoring was calibrated against over 10,000 documented caves: 40.4% of true entrances land in the top 10 ranked candidates, 59.5% in the top 25, and 73.7% in the top 50.
We're transparent about what the tool can and can't do. High-confidence detections are strong leads, but ground-truthing is always required. CaveFinder narrows your search area from thousands of acres to a handful of specific coordinates — the final confirmation still happens with boots on the ground.
Bring your own map layers
Pro users can upload their own GeoTIFF files — geology maps, historical aerial photos, karst inventory rasters, soil maps, land ownership overlays — and CaveFinder will display them as semi-transparent map layers aligned to real-world coordinates. Useful when you want to cross-reference detection results against data you already have.
Pro plan: upload GeoTIFFs up to 500 MB each, keep up to 8 loaded at a time (1 GB total stored), 15 uploads per day. Overlays are working data — they auto-expire after 24 hours so you're always working with a clean slate. Re-upload if you need them again tomorrow.
For teams running county-scale surveys
Research groups, land management agencies, grottos, and consultants who need to sweep whole counties can run analyses up to 1500 km² per job, queue batches, and export the underlying GeoTIFF rasters for downstream GIS work. Email zach@cavefinder.app if that describes your work.