San Actun and dos Ojos cave System - World's 2nd longest cave

During the August 2012 expedition a dry cave connection was made between Sistema Dos Ojo's Don's $100 Cenote entrance and Sistema Sac Actun's (Nohoch Nah Chich) Pet Cemetery entrance. It follows a similar path taken by Kay Walten, Gary Walten, and Dan Lins over a decade ago. 

The following team helped surveying the new connection: Don Arburn, Gill Ediger, Aida Ferreira, Devra Heyer, Carrie Hutchins, Pat Kambesis, Chris Lloyd, Rene Rogers Ohms, Bev Shade, Peter Sprouse (the cartographer), Terri Sprouse, German Yanez, and Jacinto Vela.

The cave system is now the longest underwater cave system known to man, with a total surveyed length of 308,407 m (=308 km) and a depth of 127.6 m, making it at the same time the second longest cave in the world (See Bob Gulden's list of longest caves in the world).

A complete report can be found in the December 2012 edition of the NSS news.

We are also pleased to report a recent underwater connection between Sistema del Mundo Escondido and Sistema Sac Actun by Alex Reato.

Future information on the exploration can be found on the website from the Quintana Roo Speleological Survey.

Four Hebrew U. researchers reach new lows in Abkhazia, and find new species of transparent fish

Boaz Langford of the Israeli cave exploration delegation
at a depth of 2,080 meters in the Krubera-Voronya cave in Abkhazia

Four researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem partook in a spelunking expedition to the deepest cave in the world, also known as the “Everest of the caves.”

The four explorers — Boaz Langford, Leonid Fagin, Vladimir Buslov and Yuval Elmaliach — joined the Ukrainian Speleological Association as part of an international delegation that aimed to break the world record for deepest place reached by spelunkers. On the team, which just returned from the trip, were members from nine countries, including Israel and Lebanon.

“The purpose of the venture was to break the world’s record for cave exploration — an achievement reached when a Ukrainian researcher reached a depth of 2,196 meters beneath the earth’s surface, five meters deeper than the previous record,” Professor Amos Frumkin of the Department of Geography at the Hebrew University, who heads the university’s cave research unit, said in a press statement on Sunday.

The second deepest cave in the World became deeper

An ongoing joint expedition of caving clubs from several Siberian sities to Sarma Cave in the Arabika Massif (Western Caucasus), led by Pavel Rudko, has reported that the cave has been pushed 60 m below the previous deepest point (-1760 m) reached last year.

This firmly establishes Sarma Cave as the second deepest cave in the world with depth of 1830 m, following Krubera Cave, located in the same massif, which has been explored this August to -2197 m by the Ukrainian expedition. The third place is hold by Snezhnaya Cave in the nearby Bzybsky Massif, with a depth of 1760 m.

Source: Speleogenesis

Krubera - Voronya: The deepest cave in the world became 6 m deeper

In august 2012 an international group of cavers descended the deepest cave in the world: Krubera-Voronya which is located in Abkhazia (Georgia).

The expedition included around 60 representatives of various foreign countries, mainly Ukrainians, as well as 15 Lithuanians.

The news is still sparse, but it seems that the Ukrainian cave diver Gennadiiy Samokhin, was able to find a new lead and push the depth of worlds deepest cave to a new record of 2197 m.

This is six meters deeper than the previous record.  A big thanks goes out to the Lithuanian's support team who laid out all the lines.

As for now it remains the only cave with a depth of more than 2000 meters.

The expedition had to deal with high water levels and had some technicial problems (communication was lost for a while) during the beginning of the expedition.

Jurkėnienė said reaching the surface safely was the team's main task now.

"There have been no heavy showers this week but weather conditions remain bad. It is still raining and conditions inside the case are rather bad. They said three siphons they have to dive through to reach the bottom are flooded. It will be a bit harder to come out."

Lithuanian Vytis Vilkas had planned to reach the record depth but he dropped the plan after his health deteriorated.

More news will follow.

Advanced Diver Magazine: Issue 2

Content: Shipwrecks of Truk Lagoon  Shipwreck Hydroatlantic  Shipwreck Northern Lights  World Record: 14000 ft. Cave Traverse  Techniques for Drift Decompression  Cylinder Marking for Multiple Mixtures: Why All the Mystery?  Sump Diving: Beneath Cloud Mountain

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Diving news: Pozo Azul (Spain) pushed to 9685m

An international team of divers have returned from an expedition to the Pozo Azul cave system in Spain.  The group, with cave divers from UK, Spain and The Netherlands were able to pass last years endpoint.

During a 15 day campaign they were able to extend the cave for another 500 meter to a total of 9685m of which 9135m has to be done diving, a world record.

The furthest point was reached by Jason Mallison along with John Volanthen, Rick Stanford and René Houben during a three day push dive.

The group was able to pass the third sump (about 260m from the limit set last year), and followed a streamway for about 180m, before reaching another sump, sump 4. This new passage is nasty terrain: razor sharp rocks, with 27 cascades for a total vertical distance of 10 - 15m to reach Sump 4, wich remains undived due to the fact that they were unable to move all their heavy equipment to here.

Pictures of the expedition can be found on the respective facebook page, along with a gallery of all participants.

Source: Diario de Burgos & Speleo Limburg

Freediving world record broken by Carlos Coste

Carlos Coste, a Venezuelan freediver, achieved his new record apnea in a Mexican underwater cave, the Cenote Dos Ojos, with a linear swim of 150 meters (dynamic). It took him 2 minutes and 32 seconds.