Georgia - Wikibooks, open books for an open world Georgia This is the latest reviewed version , checked on 5 November 2016. (+) Quality: minimal Wikipedia has related information at Georgia (country) The flag of Georgia. Map showing location of Georgia in Europe Georgia is a small country in Eastern Europe. Set on the coast of the Black Sea, it lies to the south of Russia and to the north of Turkey , Azerbaijan and Armenia . The capital city is Tbilisi and the currency used in Georgia is the Lari. Georgia was part of the Soviet Union until 1991. Since 1999, Georgia is a member of the Council of Europe, but it has not joined the European Union . Georgia's History[ edit ] From the early 19th century Georgia was part of the Russian Empire. Georgia was made a part of the USSR, also known as the Soviet Union, in 1922. After Georgia gained independence from the USSR in 1991 it had a civil war which lasted for 3 years and was caused by a power struggle between different people who wanted to govern Georgia.

Soon after further violence occurred in the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia which had large populations of Russians who either wanted to become independent or part of Russia. Since the 1990s both regions more-or-less govern themselves although they are not recognized as independent countries by most other countries. Soviet Union — The Soviet Union was a communist country which included 15 modern-day countries including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine and many others In 2008 there was a major war between Georgia, Russia and fighters from Abkhazia and South Ossetia (2008 South Ossetia war). Russia bombed Georgia and invaded parts of the country before pulling out shortly after. Both regions continue to govern themselves although the Georgian government still insists that they are part of Georgia. Georgia's Geography[ edit ] The Likani Palace from the Kura River, Borjomi, Georgia. Georgia covers an area of about 69,700 km2 (about 26,900 sq mi). It is bounded by Russia on the north and by Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkey on the south. Rugged mountains make up about 85 percent of the total land area.

The coastal area of Georgia has hot summers and cold winters while the mountain areas of Georgia have cool summers and rainy winters. Georgia is a very mountainous country with many mountains over 4,000 metres high. The highest mountain in the country is Shkhara at 5,068 metres. Georgia is also home to many deep caves including Krubera Cave which is the world's deepest cave at over 2,000 metres deep. Georgia's Black Sea coast is full of sandy beaches and popular with tourists from the region and elsewhere. Georgia's People[ edit ] The population of Georgia is 4,646,003. Nearly 100 different ethnic groups make up Georgia's population. Georgians are the largest group, making up about 70 percent of the population, followed by Armenians, Russians, and Azerbaijanis. Georgian has been the country's official language since 1918. Russian is also a commonly spoken language. Education is free and required from the first grade to the eleventh grade. Georgia has an adult literacy rate of 99.5 percent. The majority of people are Christian .

Georgia's Sights[ edit ] Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, Mtskheta, Georgia Each year Georgia is becoming more and more popular for international tourists. Ancient cathedrals and monasteries including Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, the architecture of Tbilisi's old town, traditional cuisine and fine wines are popular attractions for visitors. Over 25% of Georgia's territory is designated as national park and forests cover 40% of the total area. Around 3 million foreign visitors enter the country every year. There are 4 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Georgia which are: Bagrati Cathedral, monuments in Mtskheta (including the cathedral in the picture on the left) and the Upper Svaneti ruins. TOP 1000 | Krubera Cave. In the country of Georgia. The deepest known cave on Earth. | Globe Maps Krubera Cave. In the country of Georgia. The deepest known cave on Earth. Add to Facebook So in terms of cave surveying, I personally use a Leica [Disto X310]( The one I have is modified by this bloke to also have a magnetometer and a clinometer in it.

It is bluetooth linked a Dell Axim PDA in an OtterBox. The PDA has [PocketTopo]( installed on it which records the inputs from the Disto whenever you press the button. It builds you a map of the cave and you can draw on top of it. It looks like [this]( When I get home I can export the data to [Therion]( and draw maps with it. It makes it super easy to survey caves to a high degree of accuracy one you’ve learnt how to use all of this stuff. [Here’s]( a practice one I did. In terms of the diving, none of this would work, cos of the water and I presume because the laser beam might scatter/defract in the water. If I were them I might use a piece of rope and then measure the rope… nobody is going to quibble a few centimetres! All of the data is linked to a GPS point in the entrance to the cave, so that you know your altitude, direction etc. Related Posts Would this matter since the entrance of the cave is 2256 ft above sea level?

Sayeche December 10, 2016 [relevant TED talk]( ) Adald December 9, 2016 A few days at least. It’s been a few years since I read Tabor’s book on the subject, but if memory serves it’s something like 3 or 4 days. Tabor compares it to a Himalayan climb in reverse, which I think is pretty fair in broad terms. tauskny December 8, 2016 Does anyone know much about how this cave was formed? tischDE December 5, 2016 Dumb question: does anyone know how long it would take to get to the bottom? EunaCalifano November 26, 2016 Opened it in a shitty WRL viewer and it’s a 3D line drawing of the cave essentially, and hard to navigate with the software I have. Phois November 25, 2016 Xojyw November 24, 2016 How do they know how deep they are when they are in there? I am assuming GPS doesn’t work in there?

Phois November 21, 2016 Can you recommend a gallery of photos showing the cave system? MeghannBoardman November 11, 2016 Other than the diving (which is admittedly on the risky side) it’s not actually as dangerous as I think you’re imagining it. There are many people doing these activities from a young age and well into their 60’s and 70’s without major incident. Yes, sometimes something happens that scares you or injures someone, but overall it’s a pretty measured and calculated activity where excessive risk is heavily looked down upon. That’s why you’re always on rope when there’s anything resembling exposure, always wearing helmets, always carrying several light sources, etc. Low risk tolerance. Adald November 10, 2016 It is a karst cave, as are Cheve and Huatla in Mexico. Your really deep caves are all karstic, which makes sense if you think about it, cave-forming magma being largely a surface phenomenon.

Rel November 5, 2016 Oslt October 20, 2016 “And now I’ve come back to haunt you as a fleshless, chattering skull with a volcano for a mouth.” Chawler October 17, 2016 So how long until drones with 3d scanners can map it all? Whail October 10, 2016 How could anyone spend a month straight underground? Sulghaeng October 6, 2016 Its likely that this is an extended elevation view. Essentially the cave survey is rotated around at various points so that the lengths/depths and vertical angles are all correct. The only thing that changes is the cardinal angle. Essentially the vertical sections are almost certainly verticle. guin7865 October 5, 2016 Am I the only one who’s suddenly reminded of Terraria? Undihin October 5, 2016 You can download an extension for IE or Firefox (it’s not supported anymore in Chrome) called Cortona3D Viewer that will open .wrl files.

Here’s a quick video I made (sorry about the quality): Ingn October 1, 2016 The animal you linked looks like a springtail. This [English wiki entry]( ) should fill in the gaps. TakakoMelnick September 27, 2016 Blind Descent by James Tabor tells the story of the expeditions into this cave and several others. Literally just finished and put the book back on the shelf only to open my frontpage and see this posted. It’s absolutely incredible the hardships cavers endure to explore these places. RomaMcray September 27, 2016 Recently read the book as well. I feel like the people who do shit like that are a special kind of suicidal, not the kind that actively wants to die, the kind that actively wants to put themselves in situations where they might and are sometimes likely to die. It’s a bizarre compulsion. Undihin September 27, 2016 Here ya go. Sorry, the quality isn’t the best, but you can get the idea from it, at least.

Ceribo September 27, 2016 What do they use for 500 foot drops? I know somebody who was on a Huautla expedition and he never mentioned anything but ascenders. BuenaShore September 26, 2016 I was wondering the same thing. My guess would be using some kind of [laser rangefinder]( ). If you record each straight-line length and record the absolute angle at each joint, you could easily figure out the depth in the end. You would kind of need to do this anyway to get an accurate map of the cave. That’s just a guess though. MeghannBoardman September 24, 2016 Think about it this way. Whatever bacteria are brought down there would not be able to survive while native bacteria will obviously be fine, its not like invasive species are a likely issue. Ceribo September 21, 2016 My guess is the equipment required to penetrate cave walls is too heavy & bulky to transport all the way down there. If you mean trying from the surface, sonar is a technology for in-water mapping. LIDAR (laser-based) is for in-air applications.

There’s such a thing as seismic mapping to map through the ground (where explosions are used to map geological layers, similar to how pings map underwater surfaces); but my guess is there would be too many irregularities in the earth that would interfere with the signal to detect something as small as an air void <25m wide. Rodyn September 20, 2016 altimeters, compasses, measure lines, and all sorts of other old-fashioned surveying equipment. wasdenmzd September 19, 2016 I’ve done a little recreational caving, spent 6 hours in a cave once. It was a bit difficult to overcome the fear, but the fact the exit was a few hours away helped. I wouldn’t be able to tell myself I’ll be OK if the entrance was three weeks travel away. I’m getting anxious just thinking about it. osade September 17, 2016 Shitty Metallica elevator music! But I agree, the music doesn’t fit. tauskny August 29, 2016 I also very much enjoyed that book, and I recommend it to others.

Nyill August 28, 2016 Actually you can access Abkhazia from Georgia. You need to apply for a visa and go through Abkhazia border control, but it can be done. #Get_in Inest August 26, 2016 It’s almost certainly going to be deeper. I’m drawn to the other end: Will they find other entrances? RomaMcray August 25, 2016 We can use modern equipment now… I personally use a Leica [Disto X310]( ). The one I have is modified by this bloke to also have a magnetometer and a clinometer in it. It is bluetooth linked a Dell Axim PDA in an OtterBox. The PDA has [PocketTopo]( ) installed on it which records the inputs from the Disto whenever you press the button. It builds you a map of the cave and you can draw on top of it. It looks like [this]( ). When I get home I can export the data to [Therion]( ) and draw maps with it.

It makes it super easy to survey caves to a high degree of accuracy one you’ve learnt how to use all of this stuff. [Here’s]( ) a practice one I did. All of the data is linked to a GPS point in the entrance to the cave, so that you know your altitude, direction etc. Adir August 21, 2016 That’s not true if you run the sample against Genbank you can still separate new stuff from old stuff. How do you think bacteria are discovered at sea? That’s definitely not aseptic. Oldtiavor August 18, 2016 That seems really cool, but then you have to remember that it’s a straight up rope climb to get back up. DavisGroce August 15, 2016 James Tabor’s Blind Descent is a perspective from an author who doesn’t come from the world of caving. It’s a little sensationalist but definitely an entertaining read. If you want to read a well written book from the perspective of cavers I’d recommend Beyond the Deep by Bill Stone and Barbara Am Ende about pushing the deepest cave in the western hemisphere in Mexico.

Also, one of the best books about cave exploration is The Longest Cave by Roger Brucker. Very entertaining if you’re interested in caves and exploration. Undihin August 15, 2016 [Here is a *.wrl file]( ) Chawler August 13, 2016 From the same link: >Krubera Cave is located at 2,256 m asl He started his 52m dive to reach -2,197m. That means he started at -2,145m, which is still 111m asl. Assuming free venting to the surface, air pressure would be virtually the same as sea level. Not to downplay the insanity of it all. But what makes it insane is all the caving & humping of gear before the dive. 52m is a very routine dive for a tech diver; I know in Hawaii there’s a community of tech divers who often exceed 100m (sometimes 200m), and the world record’s over 300m. TL;DR: What a candy-ass.

😉 EDIT: Just watched video posted below, and realized sumps along the way block air passage. So I’m not sure you can assume free air venting to surface. But then again, they’re breathing the air, so maybe air gets through in other places, equalizing pressure. So many questions! CarlGuerrier August 11, 2016 A bit more info but not too indepth. [Nat Geo Story]( ) I have several hardcopies of National Geographic at home. Going to look and see if I have the one with this story. Dotuton August 10, 2016 it could be deeper as the deepest location has a question mark on it. wow Yonys August 6, 2016 How do they know how far down they are? Especially while diving? I may be an idiot, but I would like to be less of an idiot please haha. Radbel August 5, 2016 Read “Blind Descent”. It’s excellent, and tells you all about that process.

The answer to your question would depend on whether you mean that you had to do all the rigging to get down there, or what the fastest possible time with everything pre-set would be. walters1981 July 25, 2016 Looks like they started in 1982 and reached the bottom in 2007, so I guess 25 years. CatharineDorrance July 18, 2016 Ground penetrating radar has been successfully used to detect underground voids, but never anything very deep. Microgravity fluctuation surveys are another tool used to detect underground structures, but never with the precision needed to detect caves to my knowledge. deardorff3 July 12, 2016 Yeah they need to send that robot from prometheus down there to map it out. Sayeche July 12, 2016 Thanks, friend. It’s something that bothers me when I see it because I have a tendency to indulge in self-abuse as well. It’s not a useful or healthy thing to do and it’s almost never an accurate reflection of reality in my experience.

AlexTibbs July 3, 2016 Short Choke is more likely to be a description of that obstacle, not so much a name. Daros July 2, 2016 The drone swarm of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D would be great for that, too. Laeld July 1, 2016 Thanks for the link! (Even though it links to Google Play, not Amazon.) Here’s the [Amazon link]( ). Usklor June 30, 2016 Artifacts – Almost certainly not. Animals – Could be, but unlikely. It’d be great if they could at least get bacterial cultures (much more likely, especially in the water), I’d imagine anything growing down there has been isolated for crazy timespans. Edit: Turns out there’s about 12 insect species in the cave, deepest one they’ve found is [*Plutomurus ortobalaganensis*]( ) (sorry no English article for it), it was found at 1.98 km. Oslt June 21, 2016 The insane part to me is water level changes by over 200m!

Sounds like you can’t predict water will be where you last saw it. How about planning that expedition?!? (See the 2010 History recap on the Wikipedia page.) Lordnys June 19, 2016 That is a great video, and I wonder why would the author want to ruin it with shitty elevator music. Sayeche June 18, 2016 Hm, possibly an altimeter. Sumps would mess up readings if that was the only passage, and air couldn’t get through. But it’s probably not the only passage, because they’re breathing. So maybe altimeters? EviaBruss June 13, 2016 By the way, I think it’s interesting to mention that the cave entrance is actually 2 256 m above sea level, so the deepest they have dived was actually about 62 meters above sea level. Imem June 11, 2016 Fastest possible time?

I figured trying to figure how long it would take by rigging to get down there would be hard to determine Stramald June 11, 2016 This made me feel so clostophobic, respect to the people who explored these caves, scares the bejesus out of me to get stuck 2km in the caves below, is there video of the exploration or only books about it? Ightcer June 10, 2016 Typically not altimeters. With a compass, clinometer, and tape you can do all the trig you need to determine depth. In addition you would have a person assigned to sketching the passage cross sections, floor details, etc in order to combine those drawings with the line plot for a detailed map. DomingaRico June 4, 2016 Have you considered that it is actually easier to use a 500g ascender instead of lugging a winch + generator + fuel down 1.5km of vertical passage? GaleBostick May 10, 2016 all this is irrelevant romanticism.

good luck getting to the cave from Georgia… Lucessinger98 May 4, 2016 Does anyone know how they chart these maps? How do they know how deep they are? How do they determine these caves will look like on a map? NelsonBakken May 3, 2016 For whatever it’s worth, Krubera does have some very similar sections. Uskunte May 2, 2016 I imagine it would be extremely difficult to drag diving equipment and oxygen tanks all the way down there, especially since you would need specialized equipment for deep diving. I wonder if they have found anything interesting down at those depths, animals or artifacts of some kind? ShahidAqq April 23, 2016 It’s very difficult, but that’s exactly how they got it to this point. More caves are still being discovered and explored – it’s a very malleable record. AlexTibbs April 23, 2016 I’d imagine it formed as any other cave does in karst regions.

Dissolution of limestone/dolomite/gypsum by acidic water (carbonic acid from atmospheric CO2 dissolved in water) Lavonne1 April 22, 2016 The entrance is at 2200m above sea level, so that helps. Yes, it’s breathable. Lordnys April 21, 2016 It was noted below, but the entrance to the cave is at 2,256 M. The bottom is still above sea level. hyunsc2 April 16, 2016 FYI, I am not complety speculating. In fact this was a major [issue]( ) when drilling into the antartic [Lake Vostok]( ). But in regards to the sequencing you are right, It looks like they could exclude results that are most likely contamination. DonnieHeinlein April 10, 2016 Perhaps. None of the pictures I have seen show anything so mild but it may simply be that no one wants pictures of the less extreme portions. A 3D model be amazing.

Neab April 6, 2016 Ok, that was exactly what I was thinking, that new bacteria could act invasivly. Do you have any specific reason why this would not be the case? I was thinking it would compare to bringing goats and other animals (analogous to the outside bacteria) to [galapogos]( ) (analogous to the isolated ecosystem in cave) Jacquiline1999 March 29, 2016 This is sometimes done, but cave survey is already so time consuming that certain details will always be left out. Rodyn March 29, 2016 To be fair the author is not from that world and seeks to sensationalize it for a good story. Oasi March 28, 2016 Tough to survey it when it takes you more than a day of travel to reach it, and even longer to return. Tryt March 23, 2016 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Soviet Speleologists kolinmcrae March 22, 2016 Looks like magma architecture from the layout but it could as well be a karstic formation.

I guess the only way to know is to study the type of rocks. Rodyn March 21, 2016 I don’t think you can assume that none of the cave bacteria will be the same/similar as existing known bacteria. We just don’t know. Also for the sea, it is not an isolated environment, so you can say that contaminating bacteria is part of the “natural” flora, kinda. The sea is exposed to the outside world and is constantly dynamic. The cave is isolated and not dynamic, and is smaller, so any new introduction would have a larger effect. Even so, the dilution effects of the ocean are far different that a pool in the bottom of a cave. And samples from the ocean are placed in aseptic vials when collected. Just my reasoning, I am no microbiologist. But I know DNA contamination can be a bitch from my experience genotyping mice. guin7865 March 20, 2016 not a bad thing to not tell your grand kids Edit: wut ez grammer AlexTibbs March 19, 2016 this video shows a dive in the cave, it’s quite interesting.

Looks spooky down there Rodyn March 12, 2016 Can’t they use sonar to check for deeper caves? If so why not? presley77 March 5, 2016 Well, yeah. I was trying to imply that. For really long caves you have to bring in camping equipment, extra food, extra batteries, etc., and you often need extra people on your team to carry more stuff on really big caves. So for a cave like this, which has many thousands of feet of static rope for all the vertical sections, somebody has to carry each rope in, and somebody needs to carry all the camping gear in, and it all gets very elaborate. A bit like an underground Everest, in some ways. Rynepi March 4, 2016 That image is mislabeled, that’s Fantastic pit in Ellison’s Cave which is in Georgia, USA. Here’s a [Nat Geo]( ) shot of the same pit. ShellieFiles March 1, 2016 Well, you wouldn’t have to worry about funeral expenses, because nobody’s getting your body out of there for 100 years.

Endvesa February 26, 2016 Only in a cave rescue. Cavers use ascender rigs for vertical passage. Some of these caves can have hundreds of re-belays, which would mean hundreds of people pulling other people up. Much simpler to go up the rope yourself. CatharineDorrance February 25, 2016 >I don’t think you can assume that none of the cave bacteria will be the same/similar as existing known bacteria. We just don’t know. I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that there would be new species. Of course they’d be similar to something we already know, they’ve got to be related to something. Bacterial species are really loosely defined and you can find a bunch of new ones surprisingly easily (dirt samples, gut samples from various animals, etc.). Culturing them is the hard part. >Just my reasoning, I am no microbiologist. But I know DNA contamination can be a bitch from my experience genotyping mice. You’re genotyping, yeah, contamination is going to be bitch.

Which is why I said shotgun sequencing, literally taking an entire impure samples worth of DNA and sequencing it, then trying to piece it back together based on read overlaps, G/C %’s, codon bias, etc. It’s how we figure out stuff like the human gut microbiome. We’d be more likely to identify proteins/ genes then entire organisms, but if you find a gene drastically different than in any organism you know, it’s safe to say it’s a new organism. Not to mention you can just look for 16s rRNA frags. Reavis2000 February 25, 2016 Does anyone know how long it takes to reach the bottom? Issdar February 24, 2016 This is a remarkably insightful comment, and I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that. barbozaIsland February 22, 2016 Good points and thank you, I forget how the power of next-gen sequenceing is beyond the the grasp of my realization. It really is amazing. codayrzeszow February 17, 2016 When we invent geologists who don’t try to fondle the local phallic wildlife.

Nulad February 9, 2016 Lack of things to draw energy from, same thing that makes animal life hard. There’s no sunlight (obviously) for a very long distance, so it’s not a “trickle down” from the outside world like in many other caves. Everything would likely be some sort of chemolithotroph, which is neat. Realistically, culturing things is hard, taking samples and then shotgun sequencing their genomes would be much more likely and yield more results. CristineLacomb February 2, 2016 Burj Khalifa is 828 meters tall 1 World Trade is 417 meters tall Sears/Willis Tower is 442 meters tall. That cave is deeep! Nope. I honestly have no idea what I’m talking about! :-/ GastonCoit January 29, 2016 The problem is that Russia is still part of the U.N. Security Council (a permanent member), and that means that it still has veto power. Security council members try to avoid pissing off other members if they can help it, and Georgia is a relatively weak country that is well within the Russian sphere of influence.

This mealy-mouthed statement was almost certainly made by other members of the council for the benefit of Russia in an attempt to maintain some amount of cooperation from them on other issues. Burageorm January 28, 2016 That’s really neat. Someone should update the wikipedia page. Nyill January 22, 2016 Invasive species are a real issue but not in this case because life would have to be highly adapted to live in the harsh and specific conditions of the cave. Like putting fresh water fish in the sea. They might be invasive, but they would not last long and certainly not threaten the native fish. goodellkol January 20, 2016 > The UN Security Council has avoided the use of the term “ethnic cleansing” but has affirmed “the unacceptability of the demographic changes resulting from the conflict”. Fucking *politicians*, man. Cheann January 15, 2016 Recognized by four Countries…Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Nauru (Nice, 50 Mio.

Dollar paycheck from Russia…) Maybe still a disputed area…like South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh dorothywarkocz5 January 14, 2016 52m is 170 feet, 40 feet deeper than the traditional recreational dive limit, *used when you start at sea level.* Diving this deep when you’re already 2km down … in a cave … is just *insane.* RebeckaGuyton December 30, 2015 [Amazon e-book link]( ) for anyone interested. Queton December 16, 2015 > nobody’s getting your body out of there for 100 years. More like nobody is getting your body out of there ever. That is your grave now and you are buried deeper than any other human being on the planet. Ightcer December 9, 2015 Then imagine being born down there, and then having to wait at least 25 years to see the daylight while you make your way up.

WendellAhmad December 9, 2015 >fuck I’m stupid People say stuff like this too often, and it’s almost never true if you’re self-aware enough to recognize your mistakes. Accept that you made an error, but don’t beat yourself up; we all make mistakes. Stupidity is general lack of comprehension. You didn’t fail to comprehend, you just didn’t account for all variables. bellowsE December 8, 2015 He’s full of shit. 🙂 Cavers haven’t used hauling as a part of their normal ascending since the 1950’s. It is used in rescue where a caver is injured or otherwise incapacitated, but calls for specialized and time consuming rigging, a whole lot of human power, and increased risk for everyone involved. 500 ft isn’t that bad. My friend just got back from caving in China where his daily routine to enter their project cave involved a 700 ft entrance pitch. tischDE December 6, 2015 So is Abkhazia. But you won’t be able to access Abkhazia from Georgia, or vice versa.

Reavis2000 December 2, 2015 So the blue is water I am guessing. I also feel bad for the area titled “Game Over” because obviously the cave goes deeper. Iworo December 1, 2015 for a height like this I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have someone to pull you up. Yuania November 25, 2015 Sounds like the most claustrophobic documentary in history. dorothywarkocz5 November 18, 2015 > Lack of things to draw energy from so obvious… fuck I’m stupid. Thanks! Adald November 12, 2015 Is that the same scale on the horizontal and vertical axes? Anyway, I bet there’s a lot of scientists who wished their research project had a name as badass as “The Call of the Abyss”. Adald November 7, 2015 Damn, Google lied to me. Thanks for pointing that out. Wartin November 5, 2015 Ok, Yea I get what your saying, but this still seems like specualtion and would be hard to predict.

In fact this was a major [issue]( ) when drilling into the antartic [Lake Vostok]( ). Nulad October 31, 2015 Yeah, pretty much everyone does frogging, but the guy above me told me that people *don’t* use ascenders for 500 foot climbs. He wouldn’t tell me what they do use, so I have no idea if he’s full of shit, or if the Georgians have a winch or something. DianHohn October 30, 2015 I understand risk seeking, I see this is a kind of death seeking. Risk seekers tend to fly close to the line without crossing it. Cavers like the ones who explored Krubera and Cheve tend to fly past the line while trying to drag it along behind them. Sometimes they succeed and advance the limits of human ability, other times they fall short and end up a cautionary tale for future explorers. UrsulaNeel October 27, 2015 I initially thought this was a gerrymandered congressional district.

ucid October 23, 2015 The difference in elevation of the cave’s entrance and its deepest explored point is about 2,197 meters. In 2004, for the first time in the history of speleology, the Ukrainian Speleological Association expedition reached a depth greater than 2,000 m, and explored the cave to −2,080 m (−6,824 ft). Ukrainian diver Gennadiy Samokhin extended the cave by diving in the terminal sump to 46 m depth in 2007 and then to 52 m in 2012, setting successive world records of 2,191 m and 2,197 m respectively. Krubera remains the only known cave on Earth deeper than 2,000 metres. [Source]( ). GaleBostick October 20, 2015 This can be done with layers. Just put this cave layer with the rock formation layer and you’re done. It can be done on powerpoint, you don’t need ArcMap.

mcnabb October 20, 2015 > at least get bacterial cultures what makes even bacterial life hard down there? Temperature? Pressure? Tiarad October 20, 2015 I was wondering why there was so many Ukrainian expeditions to a Georgian cave, until I looked at the key. czakNorris1 October 9, 2015 [TIL about Abkhazia]( ). Thanks. UrsulaNeel October 8, 2015 1000+ images about Georgia (Country) on Pinterest | Georgia, Caves and Georgian Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas Georgia (Country) Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. 260 Pins2.4k Followers Asia - attractions and landmarks | Wondermondo Asia / Nicholas Kenrick , Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 Any other continent (and part of the world) seems small if compared to Asia.

This refers also to natural and man made heritage: in Asia are not just thousands of great landmarks, here are found landmarks created by thousands of diverse cultures from ancient Phoenicians in the present day Lebanon to the mysterious small people in Philippines and eastern islands of Indonesia. Thus any attempt to define the highlights of Asia is a bit misleading: almost everything what can be magnificent and impressive, is most magnificent and impressive in Asia. Two aspects though should be singled out: Leshan Giant Buddha, China / Bernt Rostad , Flickr / CC BY 2.0 World's first permanent settlements and cities. Very first permanent settlements appeared in the Near East - either in Turkey (signs of a settlement around Göbekli Tepe shrine around 9100 BC and Çatalhöyük village around 7500 BC), or Jericho in Palestine (first fortified settlement since 6800 BC). True cities first appeared in Mesopotamia - Uruk (Iraq, ancient Mesopotamia) might be the oldest metropolis, with some 50 - 80 thousand inhabitants in 2900 BC. Shrines, religious architecture. By far the largest and most impressive religious structures are located in Asia.

Europeans might be deservedly proud of magnificent Christian churches but the grandeur of ancient Buddhist and Christian architecture overshadows this. None can beat the fantastic temple city of Bagan (Burma), thousands of rock-cut temples in India and China or world's largest shrines - Hinduist temples in South India and Cambodia. Very special place for modern civilization is Jerusalem: a kind of navel, site at the crossroads of history and religions. Natural landmarks / Donabel and Ewen , Flickr / CC BY 2.0 Caves, sinkholes Gua Nasib Bagus with Sarawak Chamber - Malaysia, Sarawak. Contains the largest known underground chamber in the world which is some 700 metres long, 396 metres wide and 70 metres high. Krubera Cave (Voronya Cave) - Georgia, Abkhazia. Deepest known cave in the world, 2,197 metres deep. This extensive cave system is also quite long - 16,058 m. Puerto Princesa Subterranean River (St.Paul Subterranean River) - Philippines, Palawan.

More than 24 km long cave system with 8.4 kilometres long underground river, which is accessible directly from the sea and navigable up to 4.2 km deep. Contains also Italian's Chamber - giant cave hall. Son Doong cave (Hang Sơn Đoòng) - Vietnam, North Central Coast, Quang Binh province. Biggest known cave in the world. Especially impressive is the more than 4 km long passage, which is continuously 90 m wide and up to 200 m high. Total known length of this cave is 9 km. Powerful stream flows through the cave. Here are found unique cave pearls as large as baseballs, as well as green, algae covered gours. Xiaozhai tiankeng - China, Chongqing Municipality. Largest sinkhole (tiankeng) in the world, up to 662 metres deep, 625x535 metres across. Geothermal features Huanglong Valley - China, Sichuan. Possibly the largest travertine terraces in world, they extend for 3.6 kilometres and are deposited by mildly thermal springs.

Valley of Geysers - Russia, Kamchatka Krai. Second largest concentration of geysers in the world, contains some 90 geysers and many other geothermal landmarks. Velikan Geyser erupted up to 40 m high. Mount Everest from Tibet / Joe Hastings , Flickr . CC BY 2.0 Other natural landmarks Bayanzag (Flaming Cliffs) - Mongolia, Ömnögovi. One of the richest and most interesting fossil finds on Earth. This was the first site where dinosaur eggs were found, here have been found remnants of Velociraptor and other Cretaceous dinosaurs. Mount Everest - Nepal, Sagarmatha and Tibet, Shigatse. Earth's highest mountain, 8,848 m high. Man made landmarks Early human finds Liang Bua - Indonesia, East Nusa Tenggara, Flores. In the cave (and only here) were discovered remnants of an extinct, recent species of human - Homo florensiensis. Shanidar Cave - Iraq, Erbil. Cave has provided important discoveries regarding Neanderthals, such as the information about their funeral ceremonies, care for injured individuals.

One Neanderthal found in cave seems to be killed by a human. Mohenjo-daro / Usman.pg, Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 World's oldest settlements Çatalhöyük - Turkey, Konya. One of the earliest towns in the world, this Neolithic settlement had some 1,000 inhabitants already around 7000 BC and, possibly, up to 10,000 sometimes around 6500 BC. During the excavations have been found multiple valuable items - sculptures, frescoes, home utensils. Eridu - Iraq, Dhi Qar. Possible oldest city in the world, founded around 5400 BC. It became a large city by 2900 BC when its size reached 10 ha and here lived at least 4,000 inhabitants. Declined around 2050 BC. Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) - Palestine, Jericho. The lowest inhabited place and possibly - the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.

Already at 9400 BC here lived more than 1000 people, at 6800 BC the city was fortified with more than 3.6 m tall wall (one of the earliest city walls) and there was a stone watchtower with stone stairway. Since then city has been several times abandoned and resettled - also today there is a city next to the old mound. Mehrgarh - Pakistan, Balochistan. One of the most important Neolithic monuments in the world - a precursor of Indus Valley Civilization. A settlement existed here in 7000 - 5500 BC. Mohenjo-daro - Pakistan, Sindh. Remnants of one of the largest settlements of the Indus Valley Civilization and one of the earliest known cities in the world with up to 35,000 inhabitants. Developed since 2600 BC and abandoned around 1800 BC. City exhibits great skills of ancient urban planners. Uruk - Iraq, Muthanna. Possibly the oldest true city - metropolis in the world, developed as urban area around 4000 BC.

Around 2900 BC there were some 50 - 80 thousand inhabitants. Abandoned around the 4th century AD. Notable is Eanna district - possibly the first urban area in the world, where the oldest writings in the history have been found. Ancient settlements / Marc Veraart, Flickr / CC BY 2.0 Medieval cities Bagan temple city - Burma, Mandalay Region. An old temple city with 2217 temples (initially more than 5000) built mainly in the 9th - 11th centuries, once the most important centres of Buddhism in the region. More than 300 temples contain frescoes. Served as a capital of several ancient kingdoms. Although most of the temples are not in active use, locals continue to use them for some religious activities. These numerous high and beautiful buildings create a unique skyline. Fenghuang Ancient City - China, Hunan. Established in the 7th century AD, this extremely scenic city contains numerous historical buildings and other monuments of history. Old City of Sana'a - Yemen, Amanat Al-Asemah. Impressive display of the unique Yemeni urban planning and architecture.

Sana'a is founded before 500 BC and here are buildings which are more than 1,400 years old. The city walls are 9 - 14 m tall, the old city contains more than 100 mosques, 6,500 houses. Most of the houses represent highrise buildings and are ornamented. Old City of Bukhara - Uzbekistan, Bukhara. One of major centres of Persian and Islamic civilizations. Possibly the best preserved medieval city in Central Asia with numerous beautiful buildings. Some of the most beautiful are Po-i-Kalan complex, Lab-i Hauz districts, Bukhara Fortress and many others. Patan Durbar Square - Nepal, Bagmati, Lalitpur. Gorgeous central part of historical city, former capital city of Malla. Floor of square is tiled with red bricks and square is surrounded by ornate buildings. Most of current buildings are from the 17th century, but the history of this ancient town is much longer. Here are found 55 larger temples and 136 interesting courtyards. Heavily damaged during the earthquake on April 25, 2015.

Shibam / Jakub Hałun, Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Fortifications Great Wall of China - China, Beijing Municipality, Gansu, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Lianoning, Shandong and other. Parts of wall also in Mongolia. Largest series of fortification in world with a total length 8,852 km, including 6,259.6 km of actual wall. Built in the 5th century BC - 16th century AD by Chinese to protect northern borders of the Chinese Empire against intrusions by northern nomads. The oldest fraction is Great Wall of Qi (in Shandong) - approximately 600 km long section of wall built 685 BC. Krak des Chevaliers - Syria, Homs. One of the most prominent and impressive medieval castles in the world. Kurds developed a fortress since the 11th century here, byt Crusaders rebuilt it in the 1140s - 1170 and in the 13th century. Palaces / joaquin uy, Flickr . CC BY 2.0 Forbidden City - China, Beijing Municipality.

World's largest palace complex - Chinese imperial palace, which takes whole part of city. This complex of buildings for some 500 years was the centre of the Empire of China. Built in 1406 - 1420, includes 980 buildings. Contains art collections of very high importance. Potala Palace - Tibet, Lhasa. A monument of world importance, this is the chief residence of the Dalai Lama. The first palace was built here in 637, while the current palace was built in 1645 at 13 floors and 117 metres high. It contains 1000 rooms and numerous monuments of art and knowledge, although most of them have been lost since the Chinese invasion. Prehistoric and ancient shrines Chogha Zanbil - Iran, Khuzestan. The best preserved remnant of ziggurat in the world, built around 1250 BC. Devoted mainly to god Inshushinak. Remnant of ziggurat is 25 m high, one side is 105 m long. Göbekli Tepe - Turkey, Şanlıurfa.

This oldest place of worship in the world (the 10th millenium BC, late Mesolithic - early Neolithic) has several monolithic stone pillars, up to 3 meters in height with carved reliefs and pictograms. Stupas of Borobudur / ctsnow , Flickr / CC BY 2.0 Buddhist shrines Ajanta Caves - India, Maharashtra. Exceptional monument of archaeology and art - group of caves hewn in rock, for most part in the 2nd century BC. Caves contain elaborate carvings and frescoes, often are reinforced by massive stone columns left from original rock. Borobudur – Indonesia, Central Java. This Mahayana Buddhist temple complex was built in in the period between 760 and 830 AD. One of the most impressive ancient temples in the world, largest Buddhist structure in world. This pyramid-shaped shrine is adorned with 2,772 sculpted panels and 504 Buddha sculptures, it is 35 m high, each side is 123 m long, whole structure is of high symbolism and represents Buddhist cosmology. Ellora Caves - India, Maharashtra.

One of the most impressive rock-cut architectural monuments in the world, built between 550 - 1000 AD. 34 caves contain Buddhist, Hindu and Jain sanctuaries. Includes Kailasanatha (Kailash Temple) - possibly the most splendid rock-cut cave in world. Jetavanaramaya - Sri Lanka, North Central, Anuradhapura. Tallest stupa ever built - 122 m tall, for many centuries the third tallest building in the world after the pyramids of Giza. Constructed in the 3rd - 4th century AD. The construction of this giant structure required much innovation. Leshan Buddha Statue - China, Sichuan. Giant, 71 m tall rock-cut statue of seated Buddha, made in 713 - 803 AD. It was made to pacify the roaring river which took lives of many people. After construction of statue river really became more quiet - possibly due to debris loaded in the river. Longmen Grottoes - China, Henan. One of the most impressive monuments of rock-cut architecture in the world - complex of Buddhist cells and shrines.

2,345 rock cut chambers, more than 100,000 statues made in 316 - 907 AD. Paro Taktsang Buddhist monastery / Avinash Singh , Flickr / CC BY 2.0 Paro Taktsang - Bhutan, Paro. This Buddhist monastery is in a dramatic setting on the side of a cliff, 700 metres above the bottom of valley. It was built in 1692. Next to the monastery is located the 60 m high Taktsang waterfall. Shwedagon Pagoda - Burma, Yangon Region. Gilded and 98 metres tall, this stupa is richly adorned with jewels. It is the most sacred pagoda in Burma. Initially built in the 6th century, rebuilt and extended, one of the most impressive architecture monuments in the world. Hinduist shrines / Mark Fischer , Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0 Angkor Wat - Cambodia, Siem Reap. Considered to be the single largest religious complex in the world, built in the ancient capital of Khmers in the early 12th century.

Considered to be one of greatest achievements of humankind in architecture. Initially built as a Hindu monument, later converted into Buddhist temple complex. Temple is adorned with more than 1 thousand m² of high quality bas-reliefs. Bayon - Cambodia, Siem Reap. Most beautiful and largest Buddhist temple in ancient Khmer capital Angkor Thom. Built in the late 12th - early 13th century AD. Adorned with numerous large towers, contains numerous artworks. Prambanan – Indonesia, Central Java. One of the most beautiful temple complexes in the world, this Hindu temple was built around 850 AD. Central tower is 47 m high. Whole complex is rich with symbolic meaning and contains numerous art values. Sri Ranganathaswamy temple - India, Tamil Nadu. One of largest and most grandiose religious complexes in world, largest in India, covers 63 hectares. Includes 72 metres high gopuram - ornate tower. Islamic shrines / A.K.Photography , Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0 Imam Ali Mosque - Iraq, Najaf.

This mosque was established in 977 and contains the burial place of the cousin of Muhammad - ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib, as well as, according to Shi'a belief, Adam and Noah. The current gold-covered building was constructed shortly after 1500. It is one of most important Islam sites. Masjid al-Haram - Saudi Arabia, Makkah. The largest mosque in world, it was built in 638 AD to surround the Kaaba - holiest site of Islam. Contains several other sacred places, including Zamzam Well, which is widely believed to be a miraculous natural spring but in reality is handmade well. Other shrines / K.Wieland, CC-BY-SA-2.0 . Church of the Nativity - Palestine, Bethlehem. Supposed location where Jesus Christ was born - the Holy Crypt is under the church. One of the oldest continuously operating churches, worshipped since around 100 AD. Current basilica built in 565. Harmandir Sahib (Golden temple) - India, Amritsar in Punjab. Main temple of Sikhs, built in the 16th century. Ornate, gold coated structure.

Ikh Khorig - Mongolia, Khentii. Somewhat mysterious, approximately 240 km² large area, which is carefully guarded for many centuries since the death of Ghengis Khan in 1227. It is possible that here is located tomb of Genghis Khan. This beautiful woodland was guarded by Darkhad, who killed anyone entering it. In Socialist times it was heavily guarded by armed forces, now opened only for scientific research. Many Mongols consider that disturbance to this place can cause a catastroph to mankind. Temple Mount - Jerusalem (Palestinian part). A sacred site of huge importance for many millenia. This has been sacred site for Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Roman paganism. According to Judaism some aspect of Divine Presence is present here. On the mount is built Al Aqsa Mosque - third most sacred site for Muslims and Dome of the Rock with the Foundation Stone, as well as several more valuable structures. Also - one of the most contested religious sites in the world, especially between Judaists and Muslims. Here started the development of Jerusalem in the 4th millenium BC. Under the Temple Mount is a maze of underground passages.

Ancient and prehistoric cemeteries / Jordan Wooley , Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0 Hamad (Karszakkan) burial mounds, A'ali burial mounds and other sites - Bahrain, Northern Governorate. Very impressive sets of many thousands of burial mounds - tumulus. Burials have been shaped by the people of Dilmun civilization and other cultures. There are 9 more burial fields. Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang or Terracotta Army - China, Shaanxi. Unique monument of culture: buried terracotta sculptures - army soldiers near the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, made around 210 BC. In total here in have been buried more than 8,000 sculptures of soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, all made in live size and bigger, all depicting individual people. Plain of Jars – Laos, Xiangkhouang. More than 90 separate sites with unique megaliths – giant, 1 – 3 m high stone jars, occasionally with stone lids preserved.

In some sites is just one jar and in some – even 400 jars. In Ban Phakeo site stone lids are adorned with animals. Megaliths created in 500 BC – 500 AD and used as human burial sites. Most investigated and most photographed is Site 1, as well as several more which have been cleared of unexploded bombs. Site 52 contains 392 jars – the largest number. Taj Mahal - India, Agra in Uttar Pradesh. Mausoleum, built in 1648 by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. One of the most iconic monuments of architecture in world, unites elements of Islamic, Persian and Indian architecture. Other man made landmarks / Jon Rawlinson , Flickr / CC BY 2.0 Battad rice terraces and Banaue Rice Terraces - Philippines, Ifugao. Some of the most impressive rice terraces in the world, up to 2,000 years old. In the vicinities of Banaue village there are many more impressive complexes of rice terraces. These structures represent the high skills of Ifugao people to regulate water balance and ecological balance.

They managed to convert into agricultural land even 70° steep hillsides. Rice terraces are the only stone structures developed in Philippines before the coming of Europeans. Unnamed stone block in Baalbek (II) – Lebanon, Baalbek in Beqaa. The world's largest known monolith of single stone intended to move. Weight – 1,650 tons, 19.6 m long, 6 m wide, at least 5.5 m high. Not moved. Countries and territories of Asia Asia here is divided in 54 countries and territories which have been grouped in regions. Central Asia The unexplored world: A new age of discovery | The Economist purchase-rights icon TWENTY years ago this newspaper published an essay that hailed a coming “golden age of discovery”. Great expanses of the Earth were beckoning the intrepid to put their footprints on untrodden ground, scale unclimbed mountains, peer into unscrutinised forest canopies, plumb unvisited caves and dive into unfathomed seas. Many such challenges remain.

But exploration for the sake of being the first, and testing willpower, nerve and endurance, has been giving way to a higher-minded thirst to preserve the planet for future generations. As technology advances, especially in photography and telecoms, it is getting easier for ordinary citizens to play a part. Exploration is becoming both more scientific and more democratic. All the same, vast unknown chunks of the world still tempt the purely adventurous. The most obvious are mountains: thousands remain unconquered. Then there are caves: speleologists, as cavers are more grandly known, reckon that a good half of them have never even been poked into. Antarctica, larger than the United States and Mexico combined, and Greenland still offer vast, untouched icebound stretches for the ultra-hardy. (The picture above shows a crevasse on Ross Island, Antarctica.) Millions of hectares of forest canopy in the Amazon Basin and in Africa and East Asia, especially Borneo and New Guinea, are yet to be inspected. Least charted of all is the seabed. Oliver Steeds, a leading British ocean explorer and film-maker, reckons that barely 1% of it has been explored.

Lastly, there are still isolated peoples who have never been in contact with the outside world, and whose languages remain untranslated and unclassified. Start with mountains. All 14 higher than 8,000 metres have been scaled; the tallest of all, Mount Everest, has been climbed more than 7,000 times. But many thousands of peaks across the world are still unconquered, including hundreds in the Himalayas rising to 6,000-7,000 metres. Only 200-odd of the 2,800 Nepalese mountains that are higher than 6,000 metres may have been climbed, guesses Glyn Hughes, the archivist of the London-based Alpine Club. The highest unscaled mountain is Gangkhar Puensum, in Bhutan, near the border with China: the authorities have closed it to climbers to respect local beliefs. Muchu Chhish, in Pakistani Kashmir, is thought to be the highest unscaled mountain that it is still possible to get a permit to climb. It defeated a British team in 2014.

Shifting geopolitics have opened some new ranges to Westerners wanting to display their derring-do, especially in the former Soviet republics but also in Chinese-run Tibet. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan offer many challenging virgin peaks. And of course mountaineers are for ever seeking new “lines”, as they call routes, up mountains whose tops have already been reached. The sheer faces of the range of table-top mountains known as tepuis, near where Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana meet, offer a host of staggeringly hard tests. Even in Europe’s Alps new lines still beckon. Mountains apart, Antarctica is the continent we know least about, says Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, England. It is the coldest, driest and windiest, and probably offers the greatest opportunity for old-style glory-seekers wanting to secure a “first”—if they can find a sponsor rich enough. In the past 20 years numerous new feats (crossings and climbs by new routes, “unsupported” by mechanical devices, for instance) have been achieved, but many more are still to be tackled. The most impressive endurance champion is probably Rune Gjeldnes, a Norwegian.

Already the first person to cross the Arctic Ocean bringing all his provisions with him, in 2006 he became the first person to cross the Antarctic continent on skis alone without being resupplied. He is reckoned to be the only person to have traversed the North Pole, the South Pole and Greenland without resupplies. Caving offers explorers opportunities to test themselves that until recently were not even known to exist. Speleology “has changed massively” in the past two decades, says Andy Eavis, widely considered the world’s foremost caver. The Krubera cave in Georgia, near the Black Sea, down which a Ukrainian team descended in 2004, is twice as deep, at more than 2,000 metres, as the Pierre St Martin cave in the French Pyrenees, which had been reckoned the deepest when Mr Eavis plumbed it in 1971. A new technique of laser scanning can measure such “chambers” far more accurately than before. Mr Eavis still marvels at the great chambers still being found in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo.

In 1981 he was the first to explore a cave there that is still the largest by area in the world—it could enclose the Hollywood Bowl. Now South China, among other places, is offering new opportunities for cavers. Its Miao Room, penetrated in 1989, is 852 metres long, and the largest by volume. Access to forest canopies is also being transformed by technology. Towers, balloons, inflatable rafts, light aerial walkways, drones and even giant cranes that have been helicoptered into place allow scientists to see what is going on under once-inaccessible foliage. A new remote-sensing technology known as lidar can illuminate objects high up under the canopy and analyse them through reflected light. The world’s most extensive unexplored place is undoubtedly the seabed. At first the aim was to get to the ocean’s very bottom. In 1960 Jacques Piccard, a Swiss oceanographer, and Don Walsh, an American, touched the floor of the Mariana Trench, the ocean’s deepest point, off the Pacific island of Guam. It is nearly 11,000 metres down; for comparison, Mount Everest rises 8,848 metres.

Since then only one other person, a film-maker, James Cameron, has achieved the feat, in 2012. Lastly, there is one of the old-school Western explorers’ oldest quests: to find people who have never made contact with other human beings. The richest area in this respect is the Amazon Basin, mainly in Brazil but also extending into Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. (Paraguay, though not Amazonian, may also host an uncontacted people.) Estimates of the number of uncontacted groups are rising, says Fiona Watson of Survival International, an organisation that seeks to protect tribal peoples and their lands, and to help them determine their own future. Ten years ago the Brazilian government department that deals with the country’s indigenous people reckoned there were between 20 and 30 such groups. Ms Wilson now thinks there are between 70 and 80. The other last bastion of uncontacted people (or isolated people, as some anthropologists prefer to call them) is New Guinea, an immense island whose western chunk, West Papua, is part of Indonesia and whose eastern side comprises a country of its own, Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Half a century ago, many of its people lived in complete isolation from the rest of the world: even, often, from nearby groups. In the 1990s, says Sophie Grig of Survival International, missionaries made contact for the first time with at least 40 distinct groups in West Papua. But recent experiences in Amazonia lead the group to believe that there are still isolated people in various areas of West Papua. It would generally be best for them if they stayed that way, Ms Grig thinks. “All of the tribes in PNG have had contact with the modern world to one degree or another,” says Jonathan Claussen, an American linguist-cum-explorer who roams PNG. But many have seen only one or two visitors in the past 40 years, he adds; many outlying regions have yet to be visited. “The last uncontacted people are usually clans and families of a tribe that live on the fringes in isolated valleys, sub-ranges and forests,” he says.

A tribe may be labelled as contacted, but “perhaps only 20% of the villages have actually been visited…Whole sections of mountain ranges and valleys have had no recorded visits by researchers or travellers.” Finding and saving endangered languages is yet another challenge. Early this century Tom Headland, an expert on tribal languages in the Philippines at SIL International, a non-profit organisation formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics, reckoned there were 6,809 known languages, but half had fewer than 6,000 speakers each; a quarter, fewer than 1,000. Five hundred, he wrote, had no more than 100 speakers, 200 had fewer than ten. Two languages every month were reckoned to be dying out. Yet previously unknown and not properly deciphered languages are still, he reckons, occasionally found. The Ethnologue, a scholarly compendium published by SIL, has recently put the tally of “living languages” at 7,102, but says that 2,447 are “in trouble” or “dying”.

Don’t just show off While the prospect of reaching new places and even people still tantalises the adventurous, explorers have become far more conscious of a duty to preserve the environment and less keen to be seen as no more than frostbitten action heroes. Even mountaineers, still often obsessive individualists seeking to pit themselves against the forces of nature, now tend to stress their role in advancing science and protecting the environment and local people. Mr Gjeldnes took regular samples of his blood as he crossed the Antarctic to help research into the functioning of the immune system under extreme conditions. Community Action Nepal, a charity founded by a British mountaineer, Doug Scott, who in 1975 was the first Briton to scale Mount Everest, is supported by thousands of climbers across the globe. It works to improve education, health care and living conditions in the Middle Hill Regions of Nepal, the home of most of the porters who assist Himalayan climbing expeditions. Krubera, the world’s deepest known cave Today’s ocean explorers, too, think at least as much about scientific progress as about being the first to reach the bottom of another seabed. Considering its vast expanse, remarkably little is known about it.

“Only 0.05% of the ocean floor has been mapped in detail,” says Mr Steeds, who has switched from desert and jungle to the ocean. The “blue economy”, he reckons, could provide a wealth of minerals such as cobalt and manganese, and new plant and fish life. He talks poetically about the five watery zones: “sunlit” means down to 200 metres; “twilit”, descending to 1,000; “midnight” to 4,000; “abyssal” to 6,000; and finally “hadal”, meaning the deepest trenches. Virtually all today’s leading explorers stress climate change. “We’ve learnt a totally new way of presenting rainforests to the world,” says Andrew Mitchell, a British zoologist who runs the Global Canopy Programme. “It’s like understanding the lining of your lungs.” Forest coverage, he reckons, hosts 40% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. Mr Eavis says that caving offers climatologists “an incredibly detailed history of the planet” in terms of the composition of water and the atmosphere.

Bertrand Piccard, son of the late Jacques, is trying, with André Borschberg, a Swiss businessman and pilot, to achieve the first around-the-world trip in a solar-powered aircraft—“to promote clean technologies”. “The key word nowadays is discovery rather than exploration,” says John Hemming, a former director of Britain’s Royal Geographical Society and an expert on the Amazon. “The term ‘explorer’ has been diminished and debased by headline-grabbing stuntmen and adventurers.” The RGS now gives grants almost solely for research. Mr Hemming quotes Robert Ballard, an American oceanographer famous for discovering the wrecks of the Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck—but who is far prouder of his work on hydrothermal vents. “Science gives legitimacy and worth to exploration,” wrote Mr Ballard. “You see lots of stunts today, but if you’re not doing worthwhile science, you’re not an explorer.” Most good research, Mr Hemming continues, involves patient observation, often in the same spot, under concealment and for a long time.

“It is near-impossible to do that if you’re doing it solo or travelling by some awkward method.” He notes hopefully that many countries that once took less interest in the environment, including China and Brazil, along with smaller countries, such as Oman and various African ones, are becoming keener on conservation. Brazil has improved its once-dismal treatment of indigenous peoples. Mr Mitchell says the world should be grateful to them for helping to preserve the rainforest, which in turn provides the Earth with so much of its potable water. Exploring an underwater cave off Fiji Nigel Winser, another British explorer-scientist and long-time RGS luminary who more recently worked for the Earthwatch Institute, a charity founded in the United States to study and protect the environment, praises what he calls “citizen’s science”. Advances in technology, particularly in photography and the internet, make it possible for far more people to carry out valuable research. What he calls “the revolution of the camera trap” means images of animals can be captured seemingly with no interference by humans. Drastic improvements in nocturnal and underwater photography have opened whole new vistas of knowledge. Apps nowadays make it possible to identify the species of a bird by its chirp, often on the spot.

Shane Winser, another RGS stalwart (and wife of Nigel), points also to the benefits of television, since it brings the best aspects of exploration into the public domain, not least thanks to sponsorship; witness David Attenborough and Alastair Fothergill, creators of “Planet Earth” and more recently “The Hunt”, two BBC television series. Not that the new zest for scientific discovery has quenched the desire to see what is over the horizon, behind the tree, up the mountain or under the sea. What Robin Hanbury-Tenison, another British explorer, who is president of Survival International, calls “the gosh factor”—that rush of amazement and catharsis when a pinnacle is reached or a mad exploit in some jungle or desert achieved—still motivates many an explorer. There is still no limit to the feats of endurance that people seek to achieve without a tangible scientific purpose—though often for a charitable one. Just after Christmas a 53-year-old Briton, John Beeden, became the first man to row solo non-stop across the Pacific Ocean (from San Francisco to Cairns in Australia).

As Ranulf Fiennes, a British explorer, once said, people are still trying to cross the oceans “in ever tinier gin-bottles”, claiming firsts that have no bearing on science. Mountaineering still offers the same thrills it always has done. Even Everest has an almost endless list of feats yet to have been achieved. In 2006 Mark Inglis, a New Zealander, became the first double amputee to scale it. But, however admirable, this is not exploration or discovery. The gosh factor has been overtaken by the “do-good factor”. Corrections: In the original version of this article, we said that Oliver Steeds had filmed a fish at a deeper level than anyone else. In fact, this was achieved in 2014 by Alan Jamieson of Oceanlab, University of Aberdeen. We also said that Rune Gjeldnes was the first person to cross the Antarctic continent on skis without being resupplied: in fact, he was the first to do so alone, but Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Mike Stroud had previously done so together.

And we said that Bertrand Piccard is currently trying to achieve the first around-the-world trip in a solar-powered aircraft with Brian Jones. In fact, he is doing so with André Borschberg.

Question: Krubera, the deepest known cave at over 2000 metres deep, is in which country of south-east Europe?
Answer: GEORGIA