In the dank deepness of Ellison ’s Cave , you could find two of the rich freefall fossa in mainland US : Fantastic Pit , which plunges vertically for 179 meters ( 586 feet ) ; and Incredible Pit , an every bit dizzying 134 time ( 440 foot ) deep .
Ellison ’s Caveis settle on Pigeon Mountain among the Appalachian Plateaus of Northwest Georgia . The integral cave organisation is around 19 kilometre ( 12 mile ) prospicient and 324 meters ( 1,063 foot ) thick , making it the 12th deepest cave in the country .
Its vertical pits , just like most caves , are formed via erosion by water over thousands upon thousands of year . Rainwater and other flowing groundwater can cull up carbon copy dioxide from the air , causing it to become acidic enough to dissolve the limestone . Simply due to sombreness , the water flow downwards , cut up out channels over very long periods of time .
A view of the Fantastic Pit in Ellison’s Cave looking up towards the surface.Image credit:Steve Bittinger via Flickr(CC BY 2.0)
Ellison ’s Cave is also situatedon an active faultwithin Earth ’s crust . Over time , the slightly acidic piddle has dissolved the John Rock along these deep fracture , slow expanding them into erect ray of light .
Cavers and crampoon have scale much of Ellison ’s Cave , although it ’s recommended only for the most experient explorer due to its unsafe and extreme weather condition .
Indeed , the cave has been get laid to take lives . Back in 2011 , two college student from the University of Floridadied while search Ellison ’s Cave . One of the climber used a circle to drop into a pit to recover a bag but became drag in his ropes while a insensate falls pour on top of him . His friend attempted to help him but also got dumbfound . Both serviceman pass of hypothermia .
For the deep vertical pit cave in the world , channelize to Slovenia near the perimeter with Italy . Vrtiglavica , found in the Kanin Mountains of the Western Julian Alps , has a erect pitch that plunges for 603 meters ( 1,978 feet ) . Its name aptly stand for “ vertigo ” in Slovenian .
First discovered in the summer of 1996 , a joint Slovenian – Italian expedition managed to reach the bottom of the pit just a few month later on October 12 , 1996 .
Still , Vrtiglavica is not the deepest abysm in the public . That honor buy the farm to a sinkhole in China calledXiaozhai Tiankeng , or the Xiaozhai Heavenly Pit , which go down between 511 and 662 meter ( 1,667 - 2,172 feet ) into the Earth .
