Sac Actun the world's longest underwater cave.

Listen to this article On 30 January, Robert Schmitter and his team connected the Aktun Hu cave system to the Nohoch Nah Chich region of the Sac Actun system. When the two systems were combined, they collectively became the 4th longest cave in the world. Sac Actun is now the longest cave in Mexico and

ByMarcin Pawelczyk

Published: February 8, 2011 - 17:14

Updated: February 9, 2023 - 10:22

Listen to this article

On 30 January, Robert Schmitter and his team connected the Aktun Hu cave system to the Nohoch Nah Chich region of the Sac Actun system. When the two systems were combined, they collectively became the 4th longest cave in the world. Sac Actun is now the longest cave in Mexico and the longest underwater cave in the world.

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The Sac Actun system was discovered in 1987. The first map and account of its exploration was described in 1988. Further information on the exploration of the system and the potential possibility of its connection to Nohoch Nah Chich appeared in June 2007.

Exploration of the Aktun Hu system began in January 2007. Sac Actun is 215,246m long and 217,363m long including dry passes. The maximum depth is 77.6m. Previously Robert Schmitter together with Steve Bogaerts extended, in 2007, the Sac Actun to 153km. Steve Bogaerts and Robert Schmitter are characters in the film ‘A cave divers story’.

The new Sac Actun length, 217,363m, is not much greater than the measured length of Wind Cave in South Dakota, which is 217,133m . A 230m advantage in length is very little. We look forward to hearing from Wind Cave explorers, and to hearing about the Sac Actun connection to Dos Ojos.

This second task is carried out by Krzysztof Starnawski, about which we wrote here “A new opportunity to explore the longest caves in the world”

source: http://forums.caves.org/
photo: Asbjorn Hansen