Sistema Huautla facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Sistema Huautla |
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| Location | Sierra Mazateca, Oaxaca, Mexico |
| Depth | 1,560 metres (5,120 ft) deep. |
| Length | 88,707 metres (55.120 mi) total length. |
Sistema Huautla is a huge cave system found in the Sierra Mazateca mountains. These mountains are in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. As of April 2021, it was the deepest cave system in the Western Hemisphere. It goes down about 1,560 meters (5,118 feet) from top to bottom. The cave has over 88 kilometers (55 miles) of mapped tunnels and rooms.
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Where is Sistema Huautla Located?
Sistema Huautla is deep inside the Sierra Mazateca mountains. This area is in the Teotitlán District of the Cañada region in Oaxaca, Mexico. The cave system lies beneath the towns of Huautla de Jimenez, Huautepec, and Mazatlan Villa de Flores.
As of April 2021, the cave system was about 85 kilometers (53 miles) long from one end to the other. It has 25 different ways to enter it. Its deepest point is 1,560 meters (5,118 feet) from its highest entrance. Sistema Huautla is the deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere. It is also the tenth deepest cave in the whole world. While it is very deep, it is not the longest. The Mammoth Cave complex, for example, is much longer.
Exploring the History of Sistema Huautla
In 1965, cave explorers from Austin, Texas started looking for caves in the Sierra Mazateca mountains. They found several very large ones. During the 1960s, more North American cavers collected information and made maps. These maps showed that the caves were close to each other.
Over time, explorers found that the Sótano de San Agustin cave was connected to La Grieta and Nita Nanta. Eight more cave entrances were also found. It became clear that all these caves were part of one giant system, which they named Sistema Huautla. By 2015, the system was known to have 20 entrances.
Deepest Point and Underwater Exploration
In 1977, an expedition discovered the deepest part of the cave system. They set up several camps underground to reach it. This deep point was a flooded tunnel at 1,325 meters (4,347 feet), called the San Agustín sump. A sump is a part of a cave that is completely filled with water.
Later scuba diving trips in 1979 and 1981 tried to explore the sump further. However, it was too hard to carry all the diving gear so far underground.
In 1994, a huge expedition took place. It lasted 135 days and included 44 people, mostly from the UK and the US. Eleven of these explorers were cave diving. They used special equipment called rebreathers, which recycle the air they breathe. They explored three parts of the sump system. They also found an upstream tunnel. This tunnel leads to the only known place where water leaves the Huautla caves: the spring of Peña Colorada.
Recent Expeditions and Discoveries
In 2013, another two-month expedition happened. Forty team members from the UK, USA, Canada, Poland, and Mexico joined. Cavers entered through Sótano de San Agustin. It took divers three weeks to reach the San Agustín sump. This sump looked like a calm, rock-enclosed lake about 30 meters (100 feet) wide. One diver set a new depth record, stopping at 1,545 meters (5,069 feet). New measurements showed the cave had a total length of 64.2 kilometers (39.9 miles). Even with all this exploration, a clear path between where water enters Sistema Huautla and where it leaves at Peña Colorada has not yet been found.
Since then, new expeditions have been launched every year. These are part of the Proyecto Espeleológico Sistema Huautla (PESH). In 2018, an international team of 24 cavers tried to find a connection between the nearby Cueva de La Peña Colorada Sump VII and Sistema Huautla. They spent two months exploring but could not find the link.
How Sistema Huautla Formed
Sistema Huautla is a karst groundwater basin. This means it formed in soluble rock, like limestone, where water has dissolved the rock over a very long time. This creates underground rivers, caves, and sinkholes.
In 1994, scientists used a method called dye tracing. They put a special dye into the water in Nita He and Nita Nashi caves. This showed that these caves feed into Sistema Huautla through paths that are 1,100 meters (3,609 feet) deep. The cave system is shaped by large cracks in the Earth's crust called faults. The Huautla Santa Rosa Fault is on the western side, the Agua de Cerro Fault is on the eastern side, and the Plan de Escoba Fault is to the north.
See also
- List of caves
- Speleology
- List of deepest caves
