On the way to the cave. Photo: Efraim Cohen
Since the completion of its first mapping and until 2006, Malham cave in Mount Sedom was considered to be the longest salt cave in the world. In 2006, an Iranian-Czech team that worked on the island of Qeshm in Iran published a map of a salt cave called 3N, whose measured length exceeded the measured length of Malham Cave by hundreds of meters and turned it into the longest salt cave in the world. From then until 2019, Cave 3N held the title of the world’s longest salt cave. In 2018 and 2019, in two expeditions of 10 days each, an international effort that included dozens of Israeli cavers and dozens more from 6 European countries we mapped and measured more than 10 kilometers and the title “The longest salt cave in the world” was returned to Malham cave.
Author: Yoav Negev
Club: Israeli cave explorers club
Section: Cave explorations and expeditions
Type: oral presentation
Short bio of the presenter:
Yoav Negev is the founder and chairman of the Israeli cave explorers club and the founder of the Israeli cave rescue team. Yoav was one of the organizers and leaders of the expedition to resurvey Malham cave along with Boaz Langford from the Israeli Cave Research Center (I.C.R.C) and Tony Vlaykova from Caving club and speleo school “Sofia”, Bulgaria. Yoav is one of the leading members of the Israeli speleology community.
Preparation for explorations. Photo: Efraim Cohen
References:
Frumkin, A., 1992. The karst system of Mount Sedom. (Hebrew): Jerusalem, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Jerusalem, 216 pp.
Frumkin, A., 2013. Salt karst. In: Shroder, J. (Editor in Chief), Frumkin, A. (Ed.), Treatise on Geomorphology. Academic Press, San Diego, CA, vol. 6, Karst Geomorphology, pp. 407–424.
