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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Fact of the Day for May 11, 1999
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What's the deepest known cave?
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Lechuguilla Cave, near Carlsbad, New Mexico, goes down at least 1,571
feet (479 meters), making it the deepest known cave on Earth. It is
only partially explored, but already more than 97 miles (156
kilometers) of passages have been mapped.
The immense maze of rooms and passages that forms the Lechuguilla
system was discovered in 1986. A group of spelunkers (cave explorers)
decided to investigate a desert pit called Misery Hole. When they
reached the bottom, they dug down and found a chamber from which a
howling wind emerged, a sign of a large cave system.
Unlike most limestone caves that were formed by water dissolving the
rock from above, Lechuguilla was formed by hydrogen sulfide gas coming
up from underneath. The gas was released from an underground oil
pocket because of geological shifts.
Take a tour of Lechuguilla:
http://www.extremescience.com/LechuguillaCave.htm
More Cool Facts about caves:
http://www.cool-fact.com/archive/1997/07/29.html
http://www.cool-fact.com/archive/1997/08/18.html
http://www.cool-fact.com/archive/1997/08/20.html
http://www.cool-fact.com/archive/1997/08/28.html
http://www.cool-fact.com/archive/1998/09/03.html
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