How can the air be any good way down at the bottom? I would think they'd need breathing apparatus at some point in their explorations.

Also: better hope the bulbs don't burn out on those flashlights.

I like it when HLJ talks dirty. :)

Limestone rock (soluble) + water (slightly acidic) + time (millions of years) = karst topography

And whether they have coconuts tied on.

Perhaps someone in Argentina dug a hole to China.

Here's an elevation map of the cave from 2002 (from here). (I think it's the same cave. The link is to the explorers' journals.)

http://homepage.mac.com/brianjudd/ca...ve1/qikeng.gif

Tunnelling like that is usually caused by small clumps of baking soda or baking powder which weren't properly sifted. That is why it is important to sift all your dry ingredients, especially if they are clumpy.

I would guess that layers of permeable and impermeable rock are created over ages, and then pushed around as a part of tectonic plate collision, with some layers being pushed close to vertical, and then a process of erosion occurs and the impermeable parts don't crumble in for some reason. That's just a guess.

It's clearly water doing it, but I don't understand why the water eroded straight down instead of making a more horizontal cavern with stalactites and stalagmites. Those caverns are in limestone too.

It's so perfectly straight in the photos and we all know that water almost never goes perfectly straight. It winds and meanders all over the place following the path of least resistance.

Barefoot's karst topography link makes a lot of sense the way it's drawn, but I'm not fully convinced. This shaft reminds me of peeing into a snow bank. Dogs, I mean, not me. You would never catch me peeing into a snowbank.

Not just any water... falling water. Water does go in a perfectly straight line when gravity makes it fall straight down and there is no wind.

Makes me think of Gandalf and the Balrog...

they named all the different parts after... Doctor Who?

that. is. so. COOL.

You can't really dust astroglide for fingerprints, can you?

Looks kinda like the asshole of the earth. And here I thought it (the a-hole of the earth) was in a trailer park here in Kentucky.

No comments on the "grandma" quip in the intro, but I'm not sure why. One time I think of it I laugh out loud, the next time I shudder. Is it an old IOTD standby? Or just something xoB managed to sneak in?
Speaking of IOTD standbys, when I was in Vietnam there was a nearbly unit called the 174th Assault Helicopter Company, with the motto or handle "Dolphins and Sharks." The dolphins were the "slicks" or troop carriers and dustoffs and the sharks the gunships (Cobra, e.g.). Have they come up in the d/s bandinage here?

Bruce is just a witty guy.

I thunked it. But I have a quota of snarky comments per day, and I was saving them up for Flint.