10 ms·
Canadian team confirms presence of huge unexplored cave in British Columbia
- Fnoord 8y agoThere's a river going there, how could this have been missed? Anyone got a map of this?
- breck 8y agohttps://goo.gl/maps/xAq3L86hkQ82 https://goo.gl/maps/xAq3L86hkQ82
- francislavoie 8y agoLOL someone on Google Maps already named it "Saarlac Pit Cave"
- Jaruzel 8y agoNot on my view in Google Maps. Adjusting for 3D view and zooming out slightly, you really can see how remote it is!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- beefsack 8y agoIt boggles the mind that something that massive didn't get picked up sometime, especially in this age of broadly accessibly high quality satellite imagery.
- unixhero 8y agoCanada is mind bogglingly big.
- vishnu_ks 8y agoImagine the things that are waiting in the Universe to be discovered.
- johan_larson 8y agoYes it is. My favorite anecdote about it is that the province of Ontario is big enough to have vineyards in the south and polar bears in the north.
- walrus01 8y agoHalf of Canada's population lives south of the red line in this map, which is also further south than Seattle. https://imgur.com/CenW9oi https://imgur.com/CenW9oi
- johan_larson 8y agoYup. That line is just north of Montreal, so the area south of it includes Canada's two largest metropolitan areas. Did you know there's a tiny bit of Canada that is further south than the California-Oregon border?
- zrail 8y agoDetroit is actually north of that tiny bit of Canada too. Blew my mind a little when we moved here.
- jacquesm 8y agoNo kidding. Just the Wawa-Sault Ste. Marie-Timmins-Sudbury quad is large enough to be lost in for several lifetimes. One tell that you are about to enter uncharted territory is a sign that reads 'last gas station for 400km'. And that is one of the more accessible areas, there are still plenty of lakes where a water plane can land and there are logging trails every 30 km or so.
- i_feel_great 8y agoMaybe the indigenous people knew about it
- contingencies 8y agoQuite likely. I have no idea why this was downvoted. It's usually the case native populations had far greater knowledge than they are ever credited for. Perhaps they will find some evidence of humans inside.
- cthalupa 8y agoIt's quite possible that the indigenous population knew of the cave, but it's very unlikely they ever purposefully descended into it. There's not much reason to, and it would be a very difficult descent.
- contingencies 8y agoThere could be other entrances, collapses, etc.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoAnd yet when my acquaintance summited Mt Everest, there was a Tibetan native there in a fur suit and hat. I am almost certain that there will be evidence of native incursion into the cave. Its been there a long time; the natives have been there a long time. Young bloods with nothing to lose are always doing damn-fool things like that.
- cthalupa 8y agoThere's no evidence that Sherpas summited Everest prior to Norgay doing it with Hillary's expedition. Into The Silence covers this in more detail, if you care to read the whole book, but there were technological and cultural hurdles to it ever happening. Everest is a pretty clear example of native people not bothering to do stupid things until white people show up and get them tangled up in the mess.
- flyingfences 8y agoHere's a map with more recent, higher quality imagery than Google. https://zoom.earth/#52.516747,-120.04313,19z,sat https://zoom.earth/#52.516747,-120.04313,19z,sat
- nobrains 8y agoSo much for trying to keep its location secret :) From the article: "Pollack wouldn’t reveal the exact location of the cave, saying only that it was in the northern section of the park. Asked whether he was concerned about protecting the site, he said, “We are, but also the thing is that this cave is truly in the middle of nowhere."
- Fricken 8y agoThey put up a video showing arial shots of the hole and the surrounding area. Of course the internet is going to figure it out. The Wells Grey area isn't so big that you can't scour satellite maps of the whole area in a few hours.
- barrow-rider 8y agoAn awful lot of BC is the middle of nowhere. Hell, once you get 100km past the US border things thin out pretty quickly.
- avip 8y agoBC is 950K km^2 with less than 5M people (drop Metro Vancouver and it's 2.5M). So 1.5 the size of France, the majority of which basically looks like Wells Gray (though Wells Gray has some extra beautiful spots). There are dozens of "Wells Gray like" parks, and most visitors don't hike up the mountains (and surely not off trails). So it's missable in theory. [EDIT]: also mentioned in another cover - explorers believe cave was snow covered year-round up until 20-50 ago.
- walrus01 8y agoFrom the 2.5m remaining after you have subtracted Vancouver and the Fraser valley, now subtract the populations of nanaimo, Victoria, Kamloops, Kelowna, Nelson, osoyoos, Whistler, Campbell River, Prince George, fort St John, nelson and just about every other town that is big enough to have a few bank branches... The remaining rural area outside of any city limits is REALLY sparsely populated.
- cmrdporcupine 8y agoAll this is true, but this is right outside Valemount and near Jasper National Park and in an area where there is a whole bunch of hiking, backcountry nordic and alpine heli-skiing and snowmobile tourism. It's not really the most remote part of B.C. Highway 16 isn't even that far away.
- assblaster 8y agoAre there any satellite imaging surveys or aerial surveys 50+ years ago that can confirm the assertion that the cave entrance has been covered with snow 100% of the time before 50 years ago?
- walrus01 8y agoBC is huge. For this particular spot, it's a very long distance from the nearest road, even one passable by high clearance 4x4. Unless you had the valley it's in as a specific destination, would be easy to miss. It is also not accessible by float plane, so either a multi day hike or helicopter. If you look at where the population is concentrated in BC, the 10 largest cities, take a look at the total population of the province, and then look at how many square km it is...
- cmrdporcupine 8y agoNo, this is actually quite close to a quite heavily traffic'd area -- Mt Robson and Jasper National Park are quite close. The town of Valemount not far. Hwy 16, the northern branch of the Transcanada Highway, the route between Edmonton (major city population ~1million and about 5 hours away) and most of B.C. is like 50km away. There is a major 4-season ski resort being built in Valemount over the next few years. Hiking, heli-sking, mountain biking, and snowmobiling are big sports in the area. This is not some remote arctic outpost.
- zeristor 8y agoFrom looking at the map, it looks like the valley for the river goes into the cave, and that there isn't much water down hill of it going into the main river. In hindsight that could be a big signal that there water is going underground. Perhaps there are several other caves of similar size to be found?
- flyingfences 8y agoIn addition to the other comments and explanations, I saw another article wherein one of the geologists mentioned that climate change could be a factor that previously inhibited its discovery - until a few decades ago, it was probably snow-covered year-round, which would make it much harder to see.
- pp19dd 8y agoIt's hard to tell on the satellite timelapse imagery, but overall you can visually tell that snow amounts have declined in the area. However, the very point where this cave is located still looks like a hole to me as of 1984. Open a new browser window and open these two links into separate tabs and cycle through them fast until you get oriented. Not sure what conclusions you might draw from it. It's only 34 years' worth, but hmm. 1: https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/#v=52.52697,-120.06605,11.973,latLng&t=0.93 https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/#v=52.52697,-120.06... 2: https://www.google.com/maps/place/52%C2%B031'00.8%22N+120%C2%B002'36.2%22W/@52.515472,-120.06613,9047m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d52.516885!4d-120.0433829?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/place/52%C2%B031'00.8%22N+120%C2...
- gevz 8y agoHere is short aerial shot video of the entrance https://youtube.com/watch?v=m0zCbxYravM https://youtube.com/watch?v=m0zCbxYravM
- notyourwork 8y agoDid you read the article? It includes the same video.
- throwaway2419 8y agoWow ... That Cave is huge ... What unexpected things could we find there?
- chillaxtian 8y agoReptilians
- sschueller 8y agoOur Stargate...
- King-Aaron 8y agoThe nazis who live in the hollow earth
- InclinedPlane 8y agoThey live on the surface now
- walrus01 8y agoPossibly mammoth and saber tooth tiger bones, if some fell in a long time ago.
- koheripbal 8y agoUnlikely given the high altitude of the cave.
- 8bitsrule 8y agoa
- ainiriand 8y agoDear 8bitsrule, YouTube has very good quality videos now, welcome to the future. You are more than welcome to not open the YouTube link as you are browsing in low bandwidth mode, but your problems are not ours. Edit: typo.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- 8bitsrule 8y agoI thanked somebody for adding a link that I missed. For that and that alone, I was absurdly and illogically downvoted... anonymously. It could have been much more productive. Instead of downvoting, the response could have been a polite note. Downvoting without comment is a disease I'll have no part of. There's already enough rancour aboard this fractious and constantly-derailing ship.
- radicaldreamer 8y agoIt seems like it’s full of water during the summers though...
- blazespin 8y agoI used to live quite close to there. As the bird flies, doesn't seem that remote. Probably hard to get to though.
- avip 8y agoIt seems a completely reasonable hike from the sandy bank of Azure lake (in summer).
- hguhghuff 8y agoIt contains a maze of twisty little passages.
- avar 8y agoIt's on OpenStreetMap already https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/651633176 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/651633176 and someone's named it the "Sarlacc Pit" (Star Wars reference). Unclear if the OSM editor came up with it or if it's from somewhere else.
- ggsp 8y agoThe (temporary) name is mentioned in the article.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dmix 8y ago>Bevan Ernst, a regional caribou biologist with the ministry, called it “Sarlaac Pit” (a reference to a subterranean creature that made a brief appearance in the film Return of the Jedi). Pollack added that the name Ernst gave the pit is unofficial and temporary. BC Parks is consulting with local First Nations to determine whether a traditional Indigenous name for the cave exists.
- avar 8y agoThanks. As ggsp pointed out I missed that when reading the article. Curious that they're going to consult with First Nations about whether there's an existing name. "Yeah we knew about that giant hole, just never thought to mention it before".
- celticninja 8y agoIt might be more, yeah we knew about it and didn't want it fucked up with graffiti and litter so we didn't tell you about it. Or even, we have stories about it but the location was lost.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- itry2develop 8y ago"We'd like to hide the location from the internet until..." "Hey everyone, it's on Google maps!" "Ah crap"
- cvaidya1986 8y agoPotential co-working space for early stage startups?
- elymar 8y agoI’m curious as to how there are massive caves like this that we still haven’t discovered. Wouldn’t satellite imagery along with some ML be able to find these?
- Voloskaya 8y agoI guess the intersection between the set of people with the sufficient capabilities to do that and the set of people hunting for caves isn't that big. Is there a registry of all such caves with their coordinates to act as a training set?
- cakemix 8y agoGenerally, cave location datasets are not widely shared. The contents of caves, both physical and biological, tend to be susceptible--nonresistant and nonresilient--to damage from human activity. It's easier to keep the data "low key" rather than the expend effort on widespread education.
- divbzero 8y agoI wish we could keep this cave unexplored. I like the thought that there are places on Earth still untouched by human activity.
- forgot-my-pw 8y agoDon't worry, we haven't explored much of the underground.
- walrus01 8y agoNot just that the cave gets damaged, but they tend to attract people who go in and get lost, injured or die due to being unprepared and not having extensive spelunking experience and training.
- maxerickson 8y agoThe best available imagery for remote areas is often crap. Especially easily, publicly available imagery.
- drpgq 8y agoI would be curious to see a picture of where the underground river emerges.
- glennon 8y agoA dye trace would be in order, but this would be the most likely resurgence. https://zoom.earth/#52.514097,-120.011987,20z,sat https://zoom.earth/#52.514097,-120.011987,20z,sat
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- binbag 8y agoQuick, someone get Musk!
- rurban 8y agoOn youtube there's a comment of some guy who went into this Cave V (he named it that way) some years ago. it's is huge he said. https://youtu.be/m0zCbxYravM https://youtu.be/m0zCbxYravM