THE CAVE OF SWALLOWS, THE LARGEST ONE KNOWN

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Cave of the Swallows, the cave in Aquismón, that was discovered on a day like today in 1966.

The Cave of Swallows, Cave of the Swallows (Sótano de las Golondrinas), is an open-air pit cave in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, México.

The elliptical mouth, on a slope of karst, is 49 by 62 m wide and is undercut around all of its perimeter, widening to a room approximately 303 by 135 meters wide. The floor of the cave is a 333-meter freefall drop from the lowest side of the opening, with a 370-meter drop from the highest side, making it the largest known cave shaft in the world, the second deepest pit in Mexico and perhaps the 11th deepest sheer drop in the world. List of deepest caves uses different criteria, not sheer drop but accessibility.

The cave has been known to the local Huastec people since ancient times. T. R. Evans, Charles Borland and Randy Sterns were first shown the cave on 27 December 1966. The first documented descent was on 4 April 1967.

The cave is formed in the El Abra and Tamabra formations, limestones of Middle Cretaceous age.

The cave's speleogenesis is still not fully known but is a result of solutional enlargement along a vertical fracture, with subsequent vadose enlargement.

The cave's Spanish name Sótano de las Golondrinas means Basement of the Swallows, owing to the many birds which live in holes on the cave walls. These are mostly white-collared swifts (vencejos in Spanish) and green parakeets (periquillo quila). Actual swallows are in fact rarely found here.

Each morning, flocks of birds exit the cave by flying in concentric circles, gaining height until they reach the entrance.

In the evenings a large flock of swifts circles the mouth of the cave and about once each minute, a group of perhaps 50 breaks off and heads straight down towards the opening. When they cross the edge, the birds pull in their wings and free-fall, extending their wings and pulling out of the dive when they reach the heights of their nests. Watching this has become popular with tourists.

Temperatures in the cave are low. Vegetation grows thickly at the mouth, The cave floor is covered with a thick layer of debris and guano. The fungi in the guano may cause histoplasmosis in humans. 

The cave floor and walls are inhabited by millipedes, scorpions, insects, snakes and birds. From the floor at the bottom of the main shaft, there is a series of narrow pits known as The Crevice, totalling some 140 m, which brings the total depth of the cave to 515 m.

More information: Cultures Traveled

Do not always run away from the darkness!
Remember the beautiful lakes
which are hidden inside the dark caves!
In the least expected places,
there exist the most beautiful treasures!

Mehmet Murat Ildan