Hidden Earth 2018

Krem Puri ‘Fairy Cave’, Meghalaya India - 2018 Exploration and Scientific Progress in the World’s Longest Sandstone Cave

30 minute Lecture|Dr Mark Tringham

Abstract

In 2018 the Meghalaya expedition included a much anticipated return to Krem Puri for a 3rd season. The 2017 expedition had left over 100 open leads in this complex 2D ‘Maze’ cave formed in Cretaceous aged sandstone. At 12Km it looked like there was a good chance to enter the record books as the World’s longest cave formed in sandstone. The 2018 exploration exceeded expectations with a major ‘push’ doubling the length to 24Km, easily smashing the world record and finding 2 further entrances to the system. The more distant parts of the cave were found to generally comprise larger streamway canyon passages with a less maze-like character. The cave exploration is likely now more or less complete and the intriguing geology, speleogenesis and unique sandstone speleothems, some of which are new to science, are receiving closer attention from the international team involved.