This phenomenon is very common in Salento where the rivers and the streams flow underground and form caves and dolines. The last ones are vaultless caves where often little lakes have originated as the Captain's lake near Sant'Isidoro and the so called "spunnulate" (vaultless) near Porto Cesareo.

The gorges are like deep wounds made in the ground by ancient rivers; the most famous are the gorges in Laterza and Massafra, the gorge of the Rio near Tricase, the ravines in Leuca and Badisco and the Ciolo ravine.
The chasms are sink holes of rain water as the chasms in Barbarano or, in the country between Nardò and Leverano, the Colucci chasm which the canal of the Asso precipitates into.