World's Deepest Cave Explored Further
DiniZuli writes "Australian Alan Warild led a 25-strong team of cavers from Russia and Ukraine on a world-record 1830-metre descent into the Krubera-Voronia cave in Abkhazia, Georgia. Read about it here (sacrifice of goat might be required). Here's a nice map of the cave."
... don't want to end up like this guy.
http://www.holyshiite.com/caver/
If you do happen to get to the map, open the image in a new tab (window) as they have the size limited in the webpage. Actually, here's a link
Check out the Movile Cave Project, a scientific project centering around a cave discovered by well drilling in Romania in 1986. The cave was significant because the life discovered in the water in the cave (which had no natural entrance and was so sealed off from the world) was based around a totally chemosynthetic ecosystem, where all energy came from chemicals produced and used by the creatures (no light involved - none available!). This small cave alone contained over 31 species that were new to science. It's pretty amazing what might be just under our feet...
It's so cold because you get no sunlight to heat things up, yet you are so far from the centre of earth that the molten lava can't warm you either.
Interestingly enough, the longest cave penetration was made in a completely flooded cave using scuba (rebreathers). They are the EKPP http://www.ekpp.de/projects/doux02/index.html.