Vietnam’s Son Doong cave, Earth’s largest known cave passage, according to a survey team. <\/p>\n
A massive cave recently uncovered in a remote Vietnamese jungle is the largest single cave passage yet found, a new survey shows.<\/p>\n
At 262-by-262 feet (80-by-80 meters) in most places, the Son Doong cave beats out the previous world-record holder, Deer Cave in the Malaysian section of the island of Borneo.<\/p>\n
Deer Cave is no less than 300-by-300 feet (91-by-91 meters), but it’s only about a mile (1.6 kilometers) long.<\/p>\n
By contrast, explorers walked 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) into Son Doong, in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, before being blocked by seasonal floodwaters\u2014and they think that the passage is even longer.<\/p>\n
Noisy and Intimidating “The terrain in that area of Vietnam is very difficult,” said expedition team member Spillane.<\/p>\n “The cave is very far out of the way. It’s totally covered in jungle, and you can’t see anything on Google Earth,” he added, referring to the free 3-D globe software.<\/p>\n (Related: “Google Earth, Satellite Maps Boost Armchair Archaeology.”)<\/p>\n “You’ve got to be very close to the cave to find it,” Spillane said. “Certainly, on previous expeditions, people have passed within a few hundred meters of the entrance without finding it.”<\/p>\n The team was told that local people had known of the cave but were too scared to delve inside.<\/p>\n “It has a very loud draft and you can hear the river from the cave entrance, so it is very noisy and intimidating,” Spillane said.<\/p>\n Bigger Caves Waiting?<\/strong><\/p>\n Of more concern to the caving team were the poisonous centipedes that live in Son Doong.<\/p>\n The explorers also spotted monkeys entering through the roof of the cave to feed on snails, according to Spillane.<\/p>\n “There are a couple of skylights about 300 meters [985 feet] above,” he said. “The monkeys are obviously able to climb in and out.”<\/p>\n A biologist will accompany the team on its return visit next year to survey the cave’s subterranean wildlife.<\/p>\n Eavis, of the International Union of Speleology, added that there are almost certainly bigger cave passages awaiting discovery around the world.<\/p>\n “That’s the fantastic thing about caving,” he said.<\/p>\n Satellite images hint, for example, that caves even larger than Son Doong lie deep in the Amazon rain forest, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vietnam’s Son Doong cave, Earth’s largest known cave passage, according to a survey team. A massive cave recently uncovered in a remote Vietnamese jungle is the largest single cave passage yet found, a new survey shows. At 262-by-262 feet (80-by-80 meters) in most places, the Son Doong cave beats out the previous world-record holder, Deer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nSon Doong had somehow escaped detection during previous British caving expeditions to the region, which is rich in limestone grottos.<\/p>\n