A dive into the deepest abyss on the planet, in the mountains of Georgia

 

Six Eiffel towers stacked on top of each other. This is the impressive size of Krubera, the deepest known cave in the world. At 2,197 meters deep, it is considered the Everest of caves.

We are in the heart of the Arabika massif, in Georgia. And Krubera was discovered in 1960 by a large group of explorers and scientists who attempted to descend ever deeper, each time setting a new record.

In 2001, the cave officially became the longest known to man, with an explored depth of 1,710 meters. But over the years, exploration has continued and the first to "touch the bottom" was the Ukrainian diver Gennadiy Samokhin in 2012, who reached the extreme depth of -2,197 meters by venturing into an area completely submerged in water and winning the "Cave diving depth world record".

A feat not for everyone, which allows you to touch the heart of the earth with your own hands. To reach the depth of -2,197 meters, you need to pass through three flooded siphons, through caves so narrow that you have to take off your oxygen tanks. But those who have been there have described the experience as something unique and primordial. An uncontaminated wonder where you really feel in touch with the planet.

Then, on the walls of the cave, water flows which, in addition to increasing the difficulty level of the descent, feeds an underground river, the heart of one of the deepest ecosystems on earth, where the Plutomurus Ortobalaganensis was discovered, an eyeless and wingless insect that has adapted to those extreme conditions.

Obsidian field in Georgia - Caucasus

Obsidian is a volcanic glass whose formation is due to the very rapid cooling of lava, always rich in silicate ions (from 40% to over 65%), which are unable to achieve the ordered formation of a crystalline lattice, but assume a chaotic arrangement (amorphous structure) as in a superviscous liquid. Obsidian is a natural glass, completely similar to that of human production.

A highly sought-after raw material in ancient times for the manufacture of cutting tools (mainly knives), it was one of the goods that animated Mediterranean trade and supported the economic life of the places of extraction, such as Sardinia, Lipari or Pantelleria, in the prehistoric period. Today it is still worked into small decorative objects, jewelry, scalpel blades.

Pliny called it lapis obsianus or obsidianus in honor of a certain Obsius or Obsidius, who first mentioned the stone in some areas of Ethiopia. Some findings suggest that the stone was known in ancient times: the Nuragic civilization used it mainly to build spears and arrows and tools of various types, the ancient Egyptians used obsidian to make scarabs and seals while in Central America it was used by pre-Columbian civilizations.