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The Devils Hole Ridge, a small block of Paleozoic carbonate rocks surrounded by the Amargosa Desert in southern Nevada, is located at the discharge end of the Ash Meadows regional groundwater flow system.
Continuous, long-term presence of slightly thermal (33.6°C) groundwater and the extensional tectonic setting, creating underground thermal lakes in open fractures, lead to intense dissolution above the water table. The morphology of the subaerial parts of the tectonic caves was slightly modified by condensation corrosion, and the Devils Hole Prospect Cave was almost entirely created by condensation corrosion. Caves and cavities in the Devils Hole Ridge are an interesting example of a hypogene speleogenesis by mechanism by condensation corrosion, operating above an aquifer which was demonstrably supersaturated with respect to calcite for hundreds of thousands of years.