Patrick J. Kiger reports that veteran cave explorer Bill Stone has announced that in 2017, he will lead an expedition into the Chev Cave system, a sprawling underground complex in the Oaxaca region of Mexico, which water flow suggests may descend nearly 1.6 miles into the Earth. If that turns out to be true, Chev would earn the title of the deepest cave on Earth, taking away the distinction currently held by Krubera Cave in the Western Caucasus mountains in Georgia, which is about 1.36 miles deep.
But scientists say that even if Chev sets a new depth record, it may not last. Geological data leads them to believe there are numerous undiscovered caves across the globe, and that some of of those subterranean passageways may reach vastly deeper into the planet. Given the limits of the technology used for detection, though, finding those caves may be a challenge, and exploring them even more so.
At least in theory, some of those caves may reach far deeper than any humans have explored, according to Lewis Land, a hydrologist for the institute. The only limit is how far down groundwater can circulate though limestone, before the pressure becomes too great, Land said. And it seems that it can do that at far greater depths than we once thought.
The Kola Superdeep Borehole, a Soviet-era experiment to drill deep into the Earth that lasted from 1970 until 1994, reportedly found water circulating at a depth of 4.3 miles. Land said that in the 1980s, an oil exploration project in Oklahoma broke through into a cave that was at least 2.2 miles beneath the surface of the Earth.
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