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The longest known underwater cave successful the satellite is adjacent longer than we thought.
As of the commencement of this year, cave divers person mapped 524 kilometers (325.6 miles) of a subterranean h2o 'web' adjacent Tulum, Mexico, called Sistema Ox Bel Ha – and there's much to go.
The sanction Ox Bel Ha is derived from the Mayan connection and translates to "Three Paths of Water".
It is the second-longest explored cave system successful the world, 2nd lone to the Mammoth Caves successful Kentucky, which tally for astatine slightest 686 kilometers (426 miles).
The cardinal quality is that the Mammoth Caves are dry, whereas Ox Bel Ha is filled with water, making it overmuch harder to explore.
Related: Underwater Labyrinth Hidden Beneath Mexico Contains a Huge Swathe of Life
The immense cave strategy was lone discovered by Western explorers successful 1996, and explorations didn't begin for respective years. In the decades since, cave divers person worked to penetrate arsenic overmuch of the underwater labyrinth arsenic possible.
Each clip a dive squad maps a section, they indispensable cautiously modulate their oxygen and buoyancy, laying down a line wherever they go.
This transportation to the aboveground gives them a way to the exit, but it besides measures the cave's length, and lets divers cognize what elephantine caverns, sinkholes, and 'ice palaces' person already been explored.
A fewer years ago, a squad of cave divers exploring Ox Bel Ha made a breakthrough portion re-surveying existing lines. They managed to find astir 10 kilometers of caller passageways, opening the doorway to an undiscovered area.
"To our astonishment it looked similar we were the archetypal ones there," the divers wrote for In Depth mag successful 2023.
Since then, the total explored magnitude of the cave has accrued from 496.8 kilometers (308.7 miles) to 524 kilometers, according to reports from the conservation enactment CINDAQ (El Centro Investigador del Sistema Acuífero de Quintana Roo).
In 2018, Ox Bel Ha was concisely overtaken arsenic the longest explored underwater cave, arsenic cave divers discovered a transportation betwixt 2 different cave systems successful Mexico. Some of the chambers incorporate ancient Maya treasures.
Today, however, Ox Bel Ha has firmly edged backmost into archetypal place. Perhaps 1 day, if further explorations spell swimmingly, this whitethorn go the longest explored cave strategy successful the satellite – flooded oregon not.
