Krubera Cave

Krubera Cave

Do you know which is the deepest cave on the Earth and where is the cave located? It’s the “Krubera cave” which is located in Arabika Massif of the Gagra Range of the western Caucasus in the Gagra district of Abkhazia. Abkhazia is a breakaway region of Georgia. It is also known as “Voronya cave” which means crows’ cave in Russian. Arabika Massif is one of the largest high-mountain limestone karst massif in the western Caucasus region.

This mountain block contains hundreds of caves that started to develop when the mountains started to rise before more than 5 million years. Among these several hundred caves, five are deeper than 1 km. Among which Krubera is 2.197 km deep. It is the only known cave on Earth deeper than 2 km.

Krubera Cave is a 16,058 meters long cave system which for the most part consists of deep, vertical wells which are interconnected with passages. The cave starts high in the mountains, at an altitude of 2,256 meters, with a narrow entrance. Krubera Cave often is very narrow and had to be carved in many places to allow safe passage. At other places, the passageway is as large as a subway tunnel.

At the depth of 200 meters, the cave divides into two main branches: Non-Kuybyshevskaya (explored to the depth of 1.293 km in 2008) and Main (2.197 km deep). At the depth of 1.3 km, the cave further divides into numerous branches.

When speleologists started exploring the cave, one of the hardships they faced were flooded tunnels called “sumps.” When they encounter a sump, cavers have to put on scuba gear and charge ahead. One of the deepest sumps has been dived up to 52 m depth.

This Krubera cave was named after a Russian geologist Alexander Krubera. And is the only deepest cave (deeper more than 2km) in the world.

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