Cave List, by "volume"

Extracted from the newsgroup alt.caving, using the new Referencesearch engine

Subject: Re: Maximum Caves
From: c89gl@ecs.ox.ac.uk (Gavin Lowe)
Date: 14 Jun 1996 09:32:37 GMT
Message-ID: <4prbjl$i8i@news.ox.ac.uk>
Organization: Oxford University Computing Laboratory
Newsgroups: alt.caving
References: <31BFCF2A.4AD0@aol.com>

In article <31BFCF2A.4AD0@aol.com>, bonnie crystal  <BXTAL1@aol.com> wrote:
>Here's a couple of topics I've often wondered about...
<snip>
>Also, a Figure of Merit for another category of "Maximum Caves" might be 
>Depth X Length...

Interesting question.  The following data is taken from Eric Madelaine's World
Cave Database (http://www.inria.fr/agos-sophia/sis/DB/database.html).
  
                                              depth   length   product
                                      
1. Sieben Hengste-hohgant Hohlensystem        -1324m, 135000m, 178.7Mm^2
   Switzerland      

2. Holloch                                    - 872m, 165500m, 144.3Mm^2
   Switzerland      

3. Reseau de la Coumo d'Hyouernedo            -1018m,  94843m,  96.6Mm^2
   France           

4. Sistema Huautla                            -1475m,  56700m,  83.3Mm^2
   Mexico           

5. Hirlatzhohle                               -1041m,  79000m,  82.2Mm^2
   Austria         

6. Sistema Purificacion                       - 956m,  84992m,  81.3Mm^2
   Mexico           

7. La Pierre Saint Martin / Piedra San Martin -1342m,  53800m,  72.2Mm^2
   France/Spain    

8. Lechuguilla Cave                           - 490m, 141680m,  69.4Mm^2
   USA              

9. Kazumura - Olaa Cave System                -1100m,  60000m,  66.0Mm^2
   USA             

10. Mammoth Cave System                       - 116m, 563270m,  65.3Mm^2
    USA              


>I would guess that Lech would probably rank high in this category.
>Would any of the deep European caves or Mexican caves make the top 10?

All the top 7 are European or Mexican.  

All the above caves are in the top 30 in the world length list; on the other
hand, Mammoth is nowhere to be seen in the world depth list; this is probably
because of the fact that there is a lot more variability between the lengths
of the longest caves than there is between the depths of the deepest caves.

Gavin

-- 
Gavin Lowe, Oxford University Cave Club, UK
email: gavin.lowe@comlab.ox.ac.uk
WWW: http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oucl/users/gavin.lowe/Caving.html