Cave Adventure

Caves have always been a great attraction to humans since ancient times. For thousands of years, peoples of all colors on the earth have been full of dreamy visions of the magical underground world hidden in caves scattered all over the surface.

What is a dream for many is just a desire for cavers: to climb, crawl, swim and dive into the underworld.

People who seek pleasure and pleasure like to describe this quest into the depths of the earth as "a subconscious demand to return to their mother's arms."

American cave explorer Shields walked through a mysterious cave in the western no-man's land for 3 weeks. Every time he went down the cave, he found many magical and living things.

Once, he found a pale-colored insect with no vision in a cave. This insect seems to have never seen sunlight, like a cricket in a cave, crawling slowly and silently on the cave wall, with long tentacles like the crutches used by blind people when walking.

Visiting a cave is like visiting a museum. These caves have large holes and small holes, each of which is like an exhibition hall. In each hole, there are crystal-bright stalactites, which appear to be strings of ice, hanging upside down on the top of the cave alone. In a small hole called Angel's Palace, various creatures are buried in long stems of magnesium sulfate crystals, as beautiful as fully blown glass.

In the fall of 2009, three German explorers, together with zoologist Schmidt, drilled for the first time into a deep cave in the Taurus Mountains of Turkey.

After investigation, a huge cave group was discovered, which contained the longest underground river in the world. They also saw an underground lake with water as clear as crystal, and a stalactite as big as a church. They walked through steep slopes like high stone steps, climbed over huge rocks, climbed straight cliffs, and measured high passages. The passage was very dry inside, the ground was covered with fine stone powder, and when they walked, they raised waves of white powder, as if drifting in the hazy moonlight.

Explorers went deep into the caves in the Waitomo region of New Zealand. They were pleasantly surprised to find that the fluorescence in the cave was shining. It turned out that there was a rare light-emitting insect in the depths of the cave, covering the walls of the cave.

Today, it is known that the internal structure of rocks changes according to the length of geological age, however, this change is unusually slow and imperceptible. But cavers and cave researchers walk past the rock and feel the stone growing as they put their hands on it or burrow their bodies into small corners or crevices.

As far as the nature of the cave is concerned, it is just a space. This space full of magical colors can be formed in rocks, appear on the seabed, or be formed under the sloping huge slate, or formed after a volcanic eruption.

Most of the world's cave groups are created from massive limestone deposits that formed on the seafloor millions of years ago. These sediments are the remains of countless plants and animals.

In ancient times, because the water temperature of the ocean was higher than that of the land, many animals and plants migrated to the ocean to live. But because the seawater contains carbides, these animals and plants died after absorption, and the bodies were deposited on the seabed, and over time, thick layers of limestone that were both breathable and permeable were formed. Later, the limestone formed by many of these sediments emerged from the water surface, forming mountains. Once the water surface dropped, caves were left behind.

The water was constantly immersed, but not as regular as before, so the cave formed a variety of shapes, some like a babbling stream, some like a large corridor.

If there are tiny cracks in the stone at the top of this cave, water will seep in drop by drop. Under the action of the air in the cave, the water droplets release carbon dioxide, which cracks the limestone. The water dissolves and cracks the limestone and absorbs it, forming stalactites where the water keeps dripping. The stalactites that hang down from the neck are called stalactites, and the stalagmites that grow up from the ground are called stalagmites. Sometimes, the upper and lower stalactites are connected to form thick stone pillars. Some stalactites are strange, growing in all directions, as if mocking Newton's laws of gravity.

The superb creativity of nature has left all kinds of strange cave landscapes for human beings. Exploring the true face of the cave world is undoubtedly life-threatening, but the magical mysteries in the caves have always attracted warriors on earth.

The first famous cave explorer was the Assyrian king Salamasha III of the ancient East.

More than 2,800 years ago, the king of the slave country and a group of scholars drilled into the origin hole of the Tigris River and carved amazing patterns on the wall of the cave.

In Europe, the earliest reports of caving were written in 1535 by a German named Berthold Buchner. However, based on the analysis of early caving reports, even in the early 19th century, cave research was closely linked to superstition. Records such as grinding underground bones from expeditions into powder and selling them at high prices as "unicorn powder" with special curative properties are examples.

At the beginning of the 20th century, people began to conduct systematic scientific research on caves. However, even today, the main force in spelunking, or the study of speleology, is still amateur researchers, who discover and measure most underground caves.

In order to measure accurate data on the entrances, halls and passages thousands of meters deep underground, they endured unparalleled hardships, day and night in the dark, damp and cold cave, holding sludge spots with numb fingers. Measurement with a tape measure.

Some caves deep in the earth are very tall and spacious. Gigante Cave, located on the border between Italy and Yugoslavia, is so big that Peter's Basilica can be moved into the cave with almost no difficulty. Mamers Cave in Kentucky, USA is more than 360 kilometers long, while Jean-Bel Cave in France is the deepest cave in the world, and it has been measured to express 1,837 meters deeply.

Cave explorers don't just discover and measure caves to write a best-selling book about the world's best-selling book, of course. Their dedication is to find a way for science.

Based on the discoveries of cave explorers, geologists can study the internal structure of mountains, zoologists can hunt down and study rare animals in caves, meteorologists can study the temperature, water volume and the age of cave formation in past years from stalactites, archaeologists Relics of ancient people can be excavated from the soil of caves to advance the study of anthropology.

At the same time, caving is not only of great significance to natural science research, but also indispensable to modern construction. For example, detecting the exact location of underground caves is of great value for building tall buildings. The management building of a brewery in Alabama, USA, suddenly sank to the ground because the top floor of a hollow below it suddenly collapsed, and no one knew in advance that the building was built on top of an underground cavern. Also in this state of the United States, the Tennessee River barrage built with an investment of 30 million dollars was also built on a cave. As a result, it could not withstand the flood attack and was swept away by the flood.

It can be said that around the cave of the "world's most", almost every record-setting process is condensed with the blood and life of tenacious and fearless explorers.

Therefore, when we recount the reality of caving, we cannot help but bow to those dedicated pioneers.

Most of the underground caves on the earth are distributed in limestone areas, of which 7 are more than 20 kilometers long. The longest is Mamers Cave in Kentucky, USA.

One day in 1809, in the mountains of Midwest Kentucky, the hunter Hotchinz was chasing a wounded bear. The bear, exhausted from running for his life, suddenly disappeared from the hunter's sight, and the hunter found himself standing at the entrance of an unfamiliar cave. The obviously injured bear slipped into the cave. The hunter was not willing to see the prey in his hands missed, so he lit a torch and broke into the dark cave in the cold and biting chill. As he walked, the bear still didn't know where to go, but in front of Hotchinz's eyes, a vast cave with many intersections appeared. The hunter's accidental adventure awakened an underground labyrinth that had slept for hundreds of millions of years.

The news spread, attracting groups of curious

Explorer. It was found that this was once a public place for ancient Indian activities, and there were remnants of Indian torches and other daily necessities in the cave.

During the American-British War of 1812, Kentucky troops dug saltpeter in the cave to make gunpowder. In 1837, a businessperson named Golins bought the site near the entrance of the cave and built a hotel. He assigned two black slaves to conduct a systematic survey of the cave, and installed iron gates at the entrance of the cave, charging everyone who entered the cave. In 1895, the site had a new owner, an entrepreneur named Gantyre.

At this time, iron ropes have been erected in the cave, lighting equipment has been placed, and special light bulbs, torches and fireworks are used, plus props to render the mysterious atmosphere in the cave. Ganzier also trained tour guides to explain, making the cave his "cash cow".

In the 20th century, explorers and scientists from all over the world began to conduct systematic research on this cave. In 1900, the Kentucky Department of Geology mapped more than 200 different passages, corridors, shafts, caves and underground rivers in the cave and named them one by one. From this time on, the cave was named Mammoth Cave, which means "Mammoth Cave". The mammoth is a giant beast in the late Pleistocene, and its name means the size of the cave.

In 1925, scientist Collins was injured during an expedition and lost his way in the cave. The local government organized thousands of people to enter the cave to rescue. But the fork in the cave was so intricate that it took 18 days to find the scholar's body.

In 1941, the U.S. federal government acquired the site and established the Mamers Cave National Park with a total area of 207,8 square kilometers, further improving the tourist facilities.

In this huge karst cave, all kinds of stalagmites and stalactites can be seen everywhere, which is really a magical world with colorful colors and thousands of shapes. There is a place where the solidified limestone fluid hangs down from the top of the cave, like a majestic drainage waterfall. People compare it with the world-famous Nicaragua Falls and call it "Frozen Nicaragua Falls". In fact, there are really several waterfalls in the cave that leak water. The water is surging, the water splashes, and flows into the underground river.

In the dark river, people can roam in small boats, and they can also catch small fish in the river. Because these small fish live in the dark for many years, their eyes have degenerated, and people call them "eyeless fish". Because the cave is deep underground, the temperature in the cave is kept at 12 ° C all year round.

In 1972, the relevant authorities announced the distribution map of Mamers Cave: 297 kilometers in total length, 5 floors up and down, 225 passages, 77 halls, 23 shafts, 3 dark rivers, 8 waterfalls, and 2 underground lakes. The main passage is such as a large tunnel with a vault, with a width of 10 to 100 meters, a height of 4 to 20 meters, and a total length of 15 kilometers.

The largest "temple" is 165 meters long, 90 meters wide and 40 meters high. The "Star Hall" is 160 meters long, 25 meters wide and 20 meters high. The canopy hangs manganese oxide and is decorated with white gypsum crystals. Standing at the bottom of the cave and looking up, the top of the cave is like a sky dotted with "stars". In addition to one natural cave entrance, the authorities have added three artificial caves, divided into five routes for tourists to pass through.

The length of Mamo Cave has always been ahead of caves around the world. As exploration continued, in 1985, it was announced that the total length exceeded 361.6 kilometers. Of course, this length does not include branch caves that have not yet been surveyed.

In addition to this longest underground cave, the world's densest cave group is also in Kentucky, USA. According to the survey of the expedition led by Wilcox in September 1972, the combined cave group connecting the Flintridge cave group and the Mammoth cave group has a total length of 531 kilometers, and the scale is staggering. The reputation of "the land of ten thousand holes".

In 1900, the year Mammoth Cave was officially named, another huge cave was discovered in a valley in the southern United States, which was Carlsbad Cave.

One afternoon in the summer of 1900, American farmer Kim White was riding his horse through the Godlop Valley, New Mexico, looking for lost sheep. Suddenly White grabbed the reins of his horse and watched a large plume of black smoke coming out of the distance close to the ground.

He drove his horse closer to see, oh, it wasn't black smoke, it was a swarm of bats flying out of the cave. White got off his horse and stopped not far from the entrance of Carlsbad Cave to observe. Unexpectedly, he observed for 3 hours before the last bat flew out of the cave. As the "humming" flapping sound disappeared, the surroundings suddenly fell silent. At this moment, darkness enveloped the canyon, and White couldn't help but get nervous. He lit a lot of bonfires by the cave and was brave, and from time to time he grabbed the burning branches and threw them into the bottomless cave. There was no movement in the cave. White decided that nothing unexpected would happen again, and then got on his horse and went home.

From the next day, White couldn't hold back his curiosity. Holding an acetylene gas torch for several days, he went to Carlsbad Cave to explore alone. He found several openings. Later, White paid a Mexican boy to accompany him, and the two entered the cave for a more daring survey.

They traveled almost all over Carlsbad's main caverns. Once the torch was accidentally extinguished, and the two were plunged into terrifying darkness for an instant. Their ears were filled with the clinking of bats colliding with stalactites, and the clinking was continuous, causing echoes in the cave, so anxious that White and the Mexican boy almost went crazy. White forced himself to calm down, crawled on the ground, and finally groped for the road signs that were tied to ropes that were thrown along the way after entering the cave, and then breathed a sigh of relief. They carefully fumbled back and climbed out of Carlsbad Cave.

Of course White was proud, he felt that his expedition was very successful. He sold all his flock and moved his wife and children into Carlsbad Cave. White designed and made a large iron bucket, which was installed at the entrance of the cave and hoisted vertically as a tool for entering and leaving the cave.

Before long, White and Carlsbad Cave were household names. Neighbors from afar came to hear the news, and White used the original cable car to pick up passengers, allowing them to enjoy the wonderful underground world of Carlsbad Cave. White's income has also become more and more abundant.

Later, local officials also came to Carlsbad Cave to investigate and were very pleasantly surprised. In particular, the landscape where bats fly in and out of the cave is rare in the world. The government bought the cave from White, and together with the surrounding 550 square kilometers of land, opened up Carlsbad Cave National Park.

After years of exploration and survey, it has been measured that Carlsbad Cave consists of more than 60 interconnected caves, with a total area of 2.592 million square meters, making it the largest cave in the world.

Carlsbad Cave is divided into upper and lower layers, and the deepest point is 335 meters into the ground surface. The largest "big house cave" in the cave is 250 meters deep. The hall is 550 meters long and 78 meters high, and is as big as 5 football fields. There is a super stalagmite with a height of 20 meters and a diameter of 6 meters in the hall.

At present, a modern elevator has been used to enter Carlsbad Cave. On the opposite side of the bat cave, more than ten rows of semi-circular auditoriums are built with stones for observing bats entering and leaving the cave. This is a veritable "bat theater". The fly in the ointment is that in the era of Kim White, it took more than 3 hours for bats to enter and exit the cave each time, and the number of bats reached more than 8 million. This situation is really rare in the world. Today, it only takes half an hour for bats to enter and exit Carlsbad Cave, and there are only 300,000 bats, which really pales in comparison.

On the slope of Mount Carista on the northern coast of Spain, there is a crack 3 meters long and 1 meter wide. For thousands of years, the loud sound of whirring when stones rolled down has been unfathomable. In the 19th century, a revolutionary named Carista was hunted and fled to the crack by royalists. He would rather die than give in and jumped into the crack to die. Since then, the mountain, the peak and the cave have all been named after him.

In 1958, a team of Spanish spelunkers hoisted into Calista Cave for the first time. Through a 45-meter-deep vertical fissure, the explorers settled on the protruding side ridge, and suddenly saw that the cave body suddenly became clear, expanding to 20 meters in diameter, and the edge was connected to an endless cave.

After resting, the expedition continued to go deeper, and finally stopped on a large pile of crumbling limestone chips, all of them dumbfounded. The underground world displayed in front of them is so magnificent that it is unimaginable.

I saw that the main hole of Calista Cave is oval as a whole, 120 meters high, 520 meters long and 245 meters wide. According to rough estimates, it is as big as 8 football fields and covers an area of 1.5288 million square meters. Even the main holes of Mamers Cave and Carlsbad Cave are difficult to compare, obviously this is the largest single hole in the world.

Of course, there are many corridors and fissures at the bottom of Calista that stretch in all directions, which is enough for cavers to keep busy.

In the 1980s, the Malaysian Mulu expedition discovered that the Sarawak Cave, which is located in the Gunong Mulu National Park in Sarawak, Malaysia, is also a rare large cave in the world. At that time, it was reported that the main cave in Sarawak was more than 4 times longer than the main cave in Mamos, 3.5 times wider and about 1 times taller than the main cave in Mamos. In such a huge Sarawak cave, it is estimated that more than 7,500 buses can be parked at the same time.

In the end, detailed data were obtained through scientific measurement: the main cave in Sarawak is 701 meters long, 299 meters wide and 70 meters high, with a total area of 1.4672 million square meters. It seems that in front of the big brother of Karista Cave, the big brother of Sarawak Cave can only be ranked second.