World's Deepest Underwater Cave Discovered In The Czech Republic

Explorers in the Czech Republic have discovered that a flooded limestone chasm in the eastern part of the country is the world’s deepest known underwater cave. The cave, called Hranická Propast, is at least 404 meters (1,325 feet) deep. That’s about 12 meters (39 feet) deeper than the previous record-holder, a flooded sinkhole northeast of Rome called Pozzo del Merro. The discovery came on Sept. 27, when a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) deployed by a Czech-Polish expedition plunged to the cave’s deepest regions and took a reading with its on-board depth gauge, according to National Geographic, which helped fund the expedition.   “I scuba dived down to 200 meters just before the ROV’s deployment to put in the new line for the robot to follow,” Krzysztof Starnawski, a celebrated Polish diver and the leader of the expedition, told National Geographic. “The goal was to give the ROV a good start from there to the deepest part of the cave.” “We are 100 percent sure the measurements were accurate,” Starnawski told NatGeo, noting that the gauge was recently certified.  And the cave may be even deeper than 404 meters. “There was a black abyss seen below the ROV when we decided to go up,” expedition member Marcin Jamkowski, a Polish photographer, told The Huffington Post in an email. “The place was full of trees, logs, branches and we did not want the ROV fiberoptic cable to be en...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news