Hölloch on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
The Hölloch () is a long cave in the municipality
roupe de travail Höllochforschung AGH Caves of Switzerland {{schwyz-geo-stub
The Hölloch () is a long cave in the municipality Muotathal
Muotathal is a village and a municipality in Schwyz District in the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland. The eponymous valley, the Muotatal, is formed by the Muota, which joins Lake Lucerne at Brunnen.
History
Muotathal is first mentioned in 1246 ...
in Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
. In addition to being the third longest cave in Europe and the 11th longest of the world, it is also notable for having a depth of . The Hölloch is an example of a karst
Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...
cave system.
Exploration
The cave was first scientifically explored in 1875 by a group led by Alois Ulrich. Later expeditions in the 1950s by Alfred Bögli, one of the pioneers ofspeleology
Speleology () is the scientific study of caves and other karst features, as well as their chemical composition, composition, structure, physical property, physical properties, history, ecology, and the processes by which they form (speleogenes ...
, managed to explore a large part of the cave.
The explored length of the cave increased from in 1952 to by 1968. It was the first cave in the world where the explored length reached 100 km. Until the linkage of the Flint Ridge Cave System to the Mammoth Cave System was discovered in 1972, it was believed to be the largest cave system in the world.
Despite this, exploration of the Hölloch continued, and in 1976 it had been mapped to approximately long.
Tourism
A portion of the cave near the entrance is open to visitors, but the remainder is restricted to qualified cavers only owing to its enormous size.See also
*List of longest caves
This list of longest caves includes caves in which the combined length of documented passageways exceeds . In some of these caves, passageways are still being discovered.
Geographical distribution
Caves are found around the world. The largest ...
*List of deepest caves
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
References
*External links
roupe de travail Höllochforschung AGH Caves of Switzerland {{schwyz-geo-stub