The Martin Ridge Cave System is a large

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

near

Mammoth Cave Mammoth Cave National Park is an American national park in west-central Kentucky, encompassing portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest cave system known in the world. Since the 1972 unification of Mammoth Cave with the even-longer system under F ...

, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

. The system, composed of the interconnected Whigpistle, Martin Ridge, and Jackpot Caves, has been mapped to over , and is currently the United States' thirteenth-longest cave.

Discovery

The original entrance to the system, Whigpistle Cave, was discovered by Rick Schwartz in 1976. Mapping was initiated by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

under the supervision of park hydrologist Jim Quinlan in an effort to better understand the hydrology of Mammoth Cave's watershed.Groves 1998

Significance

Surveyed so far to over , the Martin Ridge Cave System is ranked as third-longest in Kentucky, 11th-longest in the United States, and 47th-longest in the world. The cave also contains what is likely the largest cave chamber in Kentucky, the Big Womb. The Big Womb measures long, wide, and high. The cave possesses an intimate hydrologic connection with nearby Mammoth Cave. Groundwater dye tracing has shown that water flowing from Mammoth Cave's Hawkins River emerges downstream at a river within Martin Ridge Cave. The unexplored section between Mammoth Cave and the Martin Ridge Cave System is underwater and will require

cave diving Cave-diving is underwater diving in water-filled caves. It may be done as an extreme sport, a way of exploring flooded caves for scientific investigation, or for the search for and recovery of divers or, as in the 2018 Thai cave rescue, other ...

to determine whether a traversable physical connection is possible.

Connections

In 1994, explorers from the James Cave Project discovered Jackpot Cave to the east of the Whigpistle entrance. Their efforts mapped over three miles (5 km) of new cave.Glennon 2001 In 1996,

Western Kentucky University Western Kentucky University is a public university in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It was founded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1906, though its roots reach back a quarter-century earlier. It operates regional campuses in Glasgow, Elizabethtow ...

graduate students Alan Glennon and Jon Jasper discovered a new entrance and eight miles (12.5 km) of cave passage. Their exploration revealed connections to Jackpot in June 1996 and Whigpistle in August 1996.

Current exploration

Efforts continue to explore and map the cave. The Martin Ridge Cave System is separated from Mammoth Cave by a deep valley, though a human connection may be possible at the caves' lowest elevation passageways. Currently, at least a one-kilometer (3,300-foot) gap exists between the two caves' closest known reaches.

Footnotes

References

* Glennon, J.A. (2001)
"Narrative of the Exploration and Survey of the Martin Ridge Cave System, Edmonson County, Kentucky"
''from'' Application of Morphometric Relationships to Active Flow Networks within the Mammoth Cave Watershed, M.Sc. Thesis, Bowling Green: Western Kentucky University, 87 p. * Groves, C.G. (1998). The Martin Ridge Cave System,

Cave Research Foundation The Cave Research Foundation (CRF) is an American private, non-profit group dedicated to the exploration, research, and conservation of caves. The group arose in the early 1950s from the exploration efforts at Floyd Collins Crystal Cave, now withi ...