22-04-2005 19:24									#1
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4472585.stm

Has anyone here done any pot-holeing?

+2000 meters deep sound mad! - and how much further could a human possibly go before magma(thanx dr.evil) would become a problem?
And where are the dwarves?

	22-04-2005 20:17									#2
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No, its for bearded, Open Unversity lecturer types.

	22-04-2005 20:24									#3
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This has to be a code for some sort of dirty sex act.

	22-04-2005 20:38									#4
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kinky

	22-04-2005 20:41									#5
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great - now i'm a beared sex pervert. And all i wanted was to share the wonder of what i guess is a pretty cool achievment?

I have done some potholeing though......although i haven't been to the open university

It was dark and damp and cold and not very nice, and i didnt see a dwarf either

	22-04-2005 22:01									#6
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i went caving with POTM on a child-parent adventure group weekend. Not sure how deep is potholing - this was just a regular cave - we needed a rope to go down at one point, but no belay. We couldnt have been THAT far down. It WAS very different from going into a commercial cave - it was like, all dark, and dirty, and hardly anyplace close to flat to stand. I made the requisite number of jokes, like saying XYZZY at one point.

	22-04-2005 22:30									#7
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I've gone caving a few times but there are no caves around my area so I don't go often.

	22-04-2005 22:42									#8
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I'm not impressed with going down 2,000 meters. I'm impressed with coming back up 2,000 meters.

I've only ever gone to public or commercial caves. I've never done any real spelunking. #1, I'm too large at this point. I also get claustraphobic in places that tight. Plus, with my asthma, it could be a recipe for disaster.

	23-04-2005 09:48									#9
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I'm also not a big fan of going down.

	23-04-2005 09:49									#10
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Ah that's where we differ, Vince

	23-04-2005 10:05									#11
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I've been caving a few times. Where I'm from in Missouri has quite a few caves scattered around. Fun stuff, if a bit filthy and wet at times

My friend was the pres of the local uni's caving club and knew farmers who would let us enjoy the caves on their land.

	23-04-2005 10:36									#12
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We walked through some caves where they filmed one of the monkey king series. There were all these colorful lights to make it look magical and stuff.

	23-04-2005 12:48									#13
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In was in one public cave, when all of a sudden a head popped out of a wall, followed by a very muddy teen and some mud. It sorta looked like he was being born. Then another kid came out. Until they appeared, I hadn't even realized there was a hole there. It was quite startling.

	23-04-2005 12:57									#14
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The geology in my neck of the woods is all sedimentry of ignious rocks so there are no real lime stone caves though we do have some mighty big holes in the ground. The old banner mine in the local mountains is historically the second largest gold mine in the state of California and it was opporational from 1870 something to around 1960. In the 19th century we had a gold rush around here so there were lots of people digging all sorts of mines and you can still find them and crawl down them if you want. Some are pretty long.

I've also crawled through some really neat lava tubes out in the Mojave desert. Out by Pisgah Crater the longest lava tube is just short of a mile and there are tons of them just waiting for anyone to walk in and explore. There is one local "cave" up in Hidden Meadows (northern part of the county along the 15 freeway) which consists of a very large pile of boulders (average something like 20 feet around) which a stream has eroded out all the sand between the rocks creating a neat complex of under ground passages. I was last there in 1998 or so and the power company was constructing a fence to block the half dozen openings because some local kids had crawled down there and gotten stuck.

	23-04-2005 13:06									#15
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we have abandoned mines where I live. It's a death sentence going into those.

	23-04-2005 13:34									#16
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Not if you use common sense and don't try knocking down the 130 year old wooden support beams.

	23-04-2005 14:04									#17
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quote: ...like saying XYZZY at one point.

	24-04-2005 09:24									#18
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Oh. We're talking about spelunking here.

	24-04-2005 10:13									#19
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Ive never been in a cave. Come to think of it Ive never even had the chance of being near one.

quote: They set camps at depths of 700m, 1,215m, 1,410m and 1,640m, where they cooked meals, slept up to six people to a tent and worked for up to 20 hours at a stretch.

Why bother with tents? Its not going to rain and most animals arent dumb enough to travel thousands of feet into a cave.

	24-04-2005 10:22									#20
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Spiders

	24-04-2005 10:58									#21
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It's probably quite moist. You might get a lot of condensation falling off the roof.

	24-04-2005 11:30									#22
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I was once in a really big cave near Trieste, Italy. It was said it was one of the biggest in the world. Can't remember the name though.

	24-04-2005 11:33									#23
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I went spelunking once. Quite difficult for a 6', 210 lb guy who's not very agile. There was this one point where I honestly felt like Pooh bear, when he was stuck in that hole - I was actually almost worried I wouldn't have the physical upper-body strength to make it through. But I did - and when it was finished with I felt like I had truly accomplished something.

Man, what a workout that was. Not an experience I'd repeat until I lost 20 lbs, but I'm glad I did it.

	24-04-2005 15:52									#24
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Potholing

Caving

Or how's about the nice blanket term speleology?

You're doing the acts, you shoudl be able to bleeding well spell them!

	24-04-2005 15:59									#25
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Hey Rich, you should check out Chislehurst caves. Used as bomb shelters during the war.

	24-04-2005 16:02									#26
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Now there's an idea...I may pop there first just to have a look!

	24-04-2005 18:20									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Space05us Why bother with tents? Its not going to rain and most animals arent dumb enough to travel thousands of feet into a cave.

Caves are cold and very wet plus there is normally mud. Lots and lots of mud plus you have to worry about oil from your skin or clothing getting on the formations because such oils stop the formations from growing any more.

	25-04-2005 00:18									#28
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Of course I've been to Lehman caves in central Nevada. Those are some pretty good caves. Though not as good as Carlsbad caverns I hear. I'd like to go down there. But it's so far south...

	25-04-2005 01:21									#29
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Carlsbad caverns were the major woot. Mammoth cave in Kentucky was rather boring in comparision due to its lack of interesting cave formations. Louis & Clark caverns in Montana is very nice but far smaller then Carlsbad Caverns. If any one gets a chance to go to Carlsbad caverns/lechagia cave complex in New Mexico I would suggest they go for it. Its the world's largest and most extensive cave complex which includes the world's largest underground room while the various cave formations are amoung the world's best. Two thumbs up.

Although both sides of the valley are still connected by a cave network which goes at least a mile under the earth's surface the whole valley is actually the caved in roof of what was once a truly massive cave complex. We're talking about a central cave which was five to ten miles long and 250-1000 feet high at points. This central cave collapsed (likely from an earthquake) 4k-5k years ago but the deeper network still exists. National Geographic has done a few specials on Carlsbad/lechagia which I'd recommend to anyone.

	25-04-2005 14:21									#30
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we have 'wookie hole' here in the uk, i think it was my first cave experience(i was around 9) - and i was really excited as i think i had convinced myself it was where wookies lived(like chewbaca from starwars).
I remember being pretty bummed about all the rock and no wookies

Still i got over it and have been on a few weirdy-breardy cave adventures. I even discoverd an old sabre tooth tigers cave(or maybe grave?) in my back garden many years ago. After i explored it a bit(and realised it went even deeper), i got scared and came out to tell my parents. They called a local caving group and some guys came around and had a look - they found some bones, one that sabre's tooth

One thing i wouldn't want to do is that underwater caving thing - looks amazing but its really risky, i'm happy watching it on tv.

I'm still trying to get my head around the 2000 meters down part of the article i posted. That's really deep. The worlds diameter is what - 10,000 km's or something? So its like a fifth of the way through the earth?