| Bullita Cave | |
|---|---|
  | |
| Location | Northern Territory, Australia |
| Coordinates | 16°03′48″S130°23′00″E / 16.06333°S 130.38333°E |
| Length | 120 kilometres (75 mi) — 123 kilometres (76 mi) |
| Geology | Karst |
Bullita Cave, also known as Burkes Backyard Cave, [1] is a cave located in Gregory National Park of the Northern Territory, Australia. It is one of the longest surveyed caves in both Australia and the world.
Bullita Cave is part of a network of caves located close together within Gregory National Park. Major caves close to it include Dingo Cave System, which is 38.5 kilometres (23.9 mi) away, and Prometheus Cave System, which is 46.5 kilometres (28.9 mi) away; multiple smaller caves are located near Bullita Cave as well. [2] The cave has multiple entrances and is located underneath a field of limestone pavement which is over 30 kilometres (19 mi) in length. [3] [4] The cave contains a large number of holes which open up at the surface, revealing daylight, and some whole sections which are completely exposed, as well as fissures within its tunnels. [5] Beneath the Surface: A Natural History of Australian Caves describes the cave as a "complex close-spaced maze system." [4]
Operation Raleigh investigated the cave in an expedition in 1990; this was the first time that it was significantly explored. In 1992, further sections of the cave were found. [2] John Dunkley, an educator and caver who is currently a member of the Australian Speleological Federation, explored and observed the cave throughout the late 20th and early 21st century. He began surveying it in the 1990s and continued to do so until 2008, stating that a cave with as large of a size as Bullita would take a long time to survey. He discovered multiple features and statistics about the cave during his exploration. [3]
Bullita Cave, as surveyed, is one of the longest caves currently known in Australia, with multiple older sources claiming it is the longest cave in the country. [1] [4] [5] The exact length of the cave varies across different sources; the Encyclopedia of Caves and Karst Science claims that the cave was known to be 81.9 kilometres (50.9 mi) in length in March 2003, [5] while the book Beneath the Surface: A Natural History of Australian Caves, also written in 2003, states that the cave is slightly longer, containing a total of 88 kilometres (55 mi) of tunnels known at the time. [4] However, later studies have shown that the cave has over 100 kilometres (62 mi) of tunnels. Even in these later studies, the exact number still varies between sources; the book Caves for the Uninitiated states that the known length of the cave in August 2011 was 120.4 kilometres (74.8 mi), [6] while John Dunkley's observations showed the cave as having a total length of more than 122 kilometres (76 mi) [3] and a journal article published in 2016 states that the cave is 123 kilometres (76 mi) in length. [2]
Bullita Cave is also one of the longest caves in the world. The exact position of the cave on the list of longest caves also varies across sources; the Encyclopedia of Caves and Karst Science [5] names it as the 18th longest while Caves for the Uninitiated claims it's the 15th. [6] The cave covers a total area of 4 kilometres (2.5 mi). [2]
A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word cave can refer to smaller openings such as sea caves, rock shelters, and grottos, that extend a relatively short distance into the rock and they are called exogene caves. Caves which extend further underground than the opening is wide are called endogene caves.
Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. More weathering-resistant rocks, such as quartzite, can also occur, given the right conditions.
Speleology is the scientific study of caves and other karst features, as well as their composition, structure, physical properties, history, ecology, and the processes by which they form (speleogenesis) and change over time (speleomorphology). The term speleology is also sometimes applied to the recreational activity of exploring caves, but this is more properly known as caving, potholing, or spelunking. Speleology and caving are often connected, as the physical skills required for in situ study are the same.
A subterranean river is a river or watercourse that runs wholly or partly beneath the ground, one where the riverbed does not represent the surface of the Earth. It is distinct from an aquifer, which may flow like a river but is contained within a permeable layer of rock or other unconsolidated materials. A river flowing below ground level in an open gorge is not classed as subterranean.
A lava tube, or pyroduct, is a natural conduit formed by flowing lava from a volcanic vent that moves beneath the hardened surface of a lava flow. If lava in the tube empties, it will leave a cave.
The Jenolan Caves are limestone caves located within the Jenolan Karst Conservation Reserve in the Central Tablelands region, west of the Blue Mountains, in Jenolan, Oberon Council, New South Wales, in eastern Australia. The caves and 3,083-hectare (7,620-acre) reserve are situated approximately 175 kilometres (109 mi) west of Sydney, 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of Oberon and 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of Katoomba. Dating back to 340million years ago, it is the oldest known and dated open cave system in the world.
The Marble Arch Caves are a series of natural limestone caves located near the village of Florencecourt in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. The caves are named after the nearby Marble Arch, a natural limestone arch at the upstream end of Cladagh Glen under which the Cladagh River flows. The caves are formed from three rivers draining off the northern slopes of Cuilcagh mountain, which combine underground to form the Cladagh. On the surface, the river emerges from the largest karst resurgence in Ireland, and one of the largest in the United Kingdom. At 11.5 kilometres (7.1 mi) the Marble Arch Caves form the longest known cave system in Northern Ireland, and the karst is considered to be among the finest in the British Isles.
The Trebišnjica is a river in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the right tributary of the Neretva. Before it was utilized for hydro exploitation via various hydrotechnical interventions and systems with different purposes, Trebišnjica used to be a sinking river, rising and sinking through its course before resurfacing at various places from the Neretva river below the Čapljina to the Adriatic coast, and along the coast from the Neretva Delta to Sutorina.
The Nambung River is a river in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, 170 kilometres (106 mi) north of Perth. The river drains an area between the towns of Cervantes and Badgingarra. In its lower reaches the Nambung River forms a chain of waterholes in the Nambung Wetlands where it disappears underground into a limestone karst system 5.5 kilometres (3 mi) from the Indian Ocean.
Little Blue Lake is a water-filled sinkhole (“cenote”) in the Australian state of South Australia located in the state's south-east in the locality of Mount Schank about 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of the municipal seat of Mount Gambier. It is notable locally as a swimming hole and nationally as a cave diving site. It is managed by the District Council of Grant and has been developed as a recreational and tourism venue.
Fossil Cave (5L81), formerly known as The Green Waterhole, is a cave in the Limestone Coast region of south-eastern South Australia. It is located in the gazetted locality of Tantanoola about 22 kilometres north-west of the city of Mount Gambier, only a few metres from the Princes Highway between Mount Gambier and Millicent. It is popular with cave divers and is notable for being both a unique paleontological site and the "type locality" for very rare crustaceans which to date have been found only in caves and Blue Lake in the Mount Gambier region.
The Caves of Meghalaya comprise a large number of caves in the Jaintia, Khasi Hills, and Garo Hills districts in the Indian state of Meghalaya, and are amongst the longest caves in the world. Of the ten longest and deepest caves in India, the first nine are in Meghalaya, while the tenth is in Mizoram. The longest is Krem Liat Prah in the Jaintia Hills, which is 30,957 m (101,600 ft) long. The word "Krem" means cave in the local Khasi language.
Sistema Huautla is a cave system in the Sierra Mazateca mountains of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. As of April 2021 it is the deepest cave system in the Western Hemisphere, 1,560 metres (5,120 ft) from top to bottom, with over 55 miles of mapped passageways. It is the tenth deepest cave in the world. It is also the 26th longest cave system with over 100 km length.
Newcastle and Hunter Valley Speleological Society (NHVSS) is a caving club based in Newcastle, New South Wales (NSW), Australia.
Pınargözü Cave, is a cave 18 kilometres (11 mi) west of the town of Yenişarbademli in Isparta Province, Turkey. It is considered the longest cave in Turkey, although it has not yet been fully explored, and the precise extent to which it has been explored is in dispute.
Tham Luang Nang Non is a karstic cave system in the Tham Luang–Khun Nam Nang Non Forest Park, near the village of Pong Pha, in northern Thailand. It lies beneath Doi Nang Non, a mountain range on the border with Myanmar.
The Fisher Ridge Cave System is a cave system located in Hart County, Kentucky, United States, near Mammoth Cave National Park. As of November 2019 it had been mapped to a length of 130.001 miles (209.216 km), making it the fifth-longest cave in the United States and the tenth-longest in the world.
Cave diving is underwater diving in water-filled caves. The equipment used varies depending on the circumstances, and ranges from breath hold to surface supplied, but almost all cave diving is done using scuba equipment, often in specialised configurations with redundancies such as sidemount or backmounted twinset. Recreational cave diving is generally considered to be a type of technical diving due to the lack of a free surface during large parts of the dive, and often involves planned decompression stops. A distinction is made by recreational diver training agencies between cave diving and cavern diving, where cavern diving is deemed to be diving in those parts of a cave where the exit to open water can be seen by natural light. An arbitrary distance limit to the open water surface may also be specified. Despite the risks, water-filled caves attract scuba divers, cavers, and speleologists due to their often unexplored nature, and present divers with a technical diving challenge.