17MB PDF - Association for Mexican Cave Studies

The Deep Caves or the Western Hemisphereby A. Richard SmithAustin" Texas19Mexico offers deep caves" almost at every step; one of thesEcould" if all the conditions are right" turn out to be the deepe~in the world. In order to see how Mexican cave depths compare tcthose of the rest of the Western Hemisphere" I have prepared thefollowing list. Much of this information has come from the admittedlyincomplete list of the deepest caves of the world editecby H. Trimme1 at the IV International Congress of Spe1eology"prepared in December" 1965. Because the list includes only cavefat least 200 meters deep, this half of the world is not well represented.In fact, the whole Western Hemisphere contributesonly 5.1% or the caves as deep as 200 meters, while France has34.1% and Italy 20.0%. The approximate rank in the Trimme1 listis given for each cave.Rank122752Gouffre BergerCave nameSima de 1a Piedra de San Mart!nS6tano de Tlamaya (Deepest cavein Western Hemisphere)LocationFranceSpainMexicoPozo Prieto .. (Explored by Polish Cubaexpedition in 1961)57 Neff Canyon Cave85 Carlsbad Caverns114 S6tano de 1a Joya de Salas125 Cueva Juara147 Dunn's Hole158 Bull Cave159 s6tano de Huitzmo10tit1a200 Ape Cave236 Spanish Cave238 Gruta del Pa1mitoUtah, USA 357N. Mex." USA 308Mexico 273Cuba 267Jamaica 250Tenn., USA 242Mexico 240Wash., USA 214Colo., USA 204Mexico 203Depthmeters feet1122 36481110 3609454 1488380 124711701011896876820794789702670667