The cave turns out to be almost 13 kilometers longer than expected.

The famous Mammoth Cave, located in the US state of Kentucky, is the largest cave complex on earth. The cave has huge corridors on different levels where you can get lost with ease. Researchers are still busy mapping the vast cavern. And after new expeditions, the cave turns out to be no less than 13 kilometers longer than expected.

mammoth cave

Incidentally, it is not the first time that the Mammoth Cave has ‘grown’. The Mammoth Cave received its official designation as the world’s longest cave in 1969. At that time, nearly 105 kilometers of underground passages had been explored. In 1972, adventurous cavers who had spent more than 14 hours wandering the tunnels suddenly discovered a passage to another cave. This brought the total size of the Mammoth Cave to no less than 232 kilometers. Over the past 49 years, several expeditions have led to the discovery of many more passageways and tunnels. And now, with the last kilometers added, the Mammoth Cave turns out to be no less than 675 kilometers long.

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It means the world’s longest cave just got even longer this month. “Every extra kilometer means that a new part of the cave has been physically visited and explored,” explains Karen Willmes of the Cave Research Foundation (CRF, an American private, non-profit group dedicated to exploring, researching and preserving caves). And that is not without a struggle. “Many of the cave tours are long and arduous,” Willmes continues. “It includes climbing and crawling and you come across water and mud.”

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Volunteers affiliated with CRF often spend hours clambering and rappelling in caves and sometimes have to squeeze through very narrow openings to inspect new parts. After such an arduous expedition, cartographers then convert the collected data into a map. And in this way we get an increasingly better idea of ​​what caves – such as the Mammoth Cave – look like.

Unique species

That is of course very interesting. Caves appeal enormously to the imagination with their narrow corridors and dark corners. They are mysterious gems of our planet that scientists are still trying to fathom. And the Mammoth Cave is of course a special formation, partly because of its length. At the same time, the cave is home to more than 130 animal species. Some of these species are even only found in this immense cave. In the cave, for example, lives the endangered eyeless Kentucky cave shrimp (Palaemonias ganteri), which feeds on sediments from the caves and groundwater.

Whether the Mammoth Cave keeps it at a length of 675 kilometers? That, of course, is still the question. Since new connections are regularly discovered, it does not seem implausible that the cave will turn out to be a bit longer after future expeditions. In any case, Superintendent Barclay Trimble is very grateful to all the volunteers who put together thousands of hours of exploring the cave. “Thanks to them, we are able to better understand the dynamic environment in the cave,” he concludes.

Did you know…

…researchers discovered the world’s largest underwater cave a few years ago? Although that is an achievement in itself, researchers also found traces of the Maya in the 347(!) kilometer long cave. Read the whole story here!