I used to cave dive years and years ago and explore dry caves when we lived in the Missouri area. There are a ton of limestone caves there. Many aren't mapped or really marked at all, especially when you get in the bluffs along the Mississippi.
I stopped when I got stuck in a tight passage and almost drowned in a flash flood. Caves seem like these super cool places and they're climate controlled so they seemed kind of, I don't know, soft?
Then I figured out they're not and they're really really really fucking dangerous. Oh, the stupid stuff 20 year olds get up to.
Insanely dangerous, and even well marked, frequently explored caves can abruptly turn deadly even for experienced cavers. Still more terrifying is cave diving, in which explorers descend by up to hundreds of meters through winding, claustrophobic, narrow caves entirely filled with water.
At least with "dry" cave exploration, if you get stuck, you might survive up to several days with a hope of rescue, assuming you can stay hydrated and not freeze to death. With submerged cave exploration, the minute you run into serious trouble, the clock starts ticking with life lasting only as long as your air tanks. The stuff of nightmares.
Oh wow - I saw this story a few weeks ago (absolutely horrifying) and ended up binging on caving incident stories. My takeaway was that regardless of how experienced the spelunkers are, something can go wrong.
In the midst of my binge, I also found this awesome(ly horrifying) Youtube Channel of cave explorers. They have explored some amazing caves, but here's a video of them in some really tight spaces to illustrate the risk these explorers take (warning, may induced some anxiety): https://youtu.be/Us-XA2BRLgg?si=Lb62ZE1IHG4MD6K3&t=677
I'm scared of heights but I'm attracted to rock climbing, so I climb anyway and just deal with it. Caves also have a certain attraction, but those stories terrify me far more than the prospect of a serious fall. The idea of dying trapped in a tight space underground makes dying on a rock climb sound downright comforting.
We used to joke that our student caving club was really very safe, having only had seven fatalities over the 50 years it had been operating.
In reality we had a lot of expertise and took safety very seriously. The club had always done a lot of exploration of new caves and other intrinsically tricky activities, and six of the seven deaths were in the same accident (the Mossdale Caverns tragedy of 1967). Our parties of freshers were in very limited danger being trained in well-known and well-explored caves. But still.
There's not much to find for 99.99% of both of those. Like, exploring a distant planet versus exploring actual vacuum "space", is similar to exploring an undersea thermal vent versus exploring millions of square miles of featureless silt around it.
I used to cave dive years and years ago and explore dry caves when we lived in the Missouri area. There are a ton of limestone caves there. Many aren't mapped or really marked at all, especially when you get in the bluffs along the Mississippi.
I stopped when I got stuck in a tight passage and almost drowned in a flash flood. Caves seem like these super cool places and they're climate controlled so they seemed kind of, I don't know, soft?
Then I figured out they're not and they're really really really fucking dangerous. Oh, the stupid stuff 20 year olds get up to.
Insanely dangerous, and even well marked, frequently explored caves can abruptly turn deadly even for experienced cavers. Still more terrifying is cave diving, in which explorers descend by up to hundreds of meters through winding, claustrophobic, narrow caves entirely filled with water.
At least with "dry" cave exploration, if you get stuck, you might survive up to several days with a hope of rescue, assuming you can stay hydrated and not freeze to death. With submerged cave exploration, the minute you run into serious trouble, the clock starts ticking with life lasting only as long as your air tanks. The stuff of nightmares.
This YouTube channel covers many of these accidents and incidents really well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2xs90tbEeY
The death of John Jones in Nutty Putty cave is the stuff of nightmares.
He was trapped upside down for 27 hours before dying.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geolog...
Oh wow - I saw this story a few weeks ago (absolutely horrifying) and ended up binging on caving incident stories. My takeaway was that regardless of how experienced the spelunkers are, something can go wrong.
In the midst of my binge, I also found this awesome(ly horrifying) Youtube Channel of cave explorers. They have explored some amazing caves, but here's a video of them in some really tight spaces to illustrate the risk these explorers take (warning, may induced some anxiety): https://youtu.be/Us-XA2BRLgg?si=Lb62ZE1IHG4MD6K3&t=677
I'm scared of heights but I'm attracted to rock climbing, so I climb anyway and just deal with it. Caves also have a certain attraction, but those stories terrify me far more than the prospect of a serious fall. The idea of dying trapped in a tight space underground makes dying on a rock climb sound downright comforting.
We used to joke that our student caving club was really very safe, having only had seven fatalities over the 50 years it had been operating.
In reality we had a lot of expertise and took safety very seriously. The club had always done a lot of exploration of new caves and other intrinsically tricky activities, and six of the seven deaths were in the same accident (the Mossdale Caverns tragedy of 1967). Our parties of freshers were in very limited danger being trained in well-known and well-explored caves. But still.
The most insane kind of caving I've ever seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSOLDGaooQI (cave diving 245 meters deep)
You couldn't pay me enough to squeeze myself in narrow tunnels underground. But I'm glad there are brave explorers who can do it.
Title should be: Scientists cave to the darkness.
> Caving is the last realm where true, pure exploration is possible
What about the floor of the ocean and space?
There's not much to find for 99.99% of both of those. Like, exploring a distant planet versus exploring actual vacuum "space", is similar to exploring an undersea thermal vent versus exploring millions of square miles of featureless silt around it.