Replies to post #121600 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Ouch! .. correction to hyperbole. Moving on quickly, Vietnam took Nixon off the gold standard, caves may bring some gold to Vietnam
.. big OT, but searched Vietnam and saw "hyperbola" .. had to correct that, and this is interesting, with some lovely photographs.

Explorers discover spectacular caves in Vietnam
By Brett Michael Dykes .. Mon Jan 3, 2:23 pm ET

By Brett Michael Dykes brett Michael Dykes – Mon Jan 3, 2:23 pm ET

For decades, geologists have known that Vietnam is home to some of the world's most spectacular caves, many of them largely unexplored. Now husband-and-wife cavers have documented perhaps the world's largest:



Hang Son Doong, big enough in places to accommodate a New York City block of skyscrapers.

The cave in the Annamite Mountains contains a river and jungle (its name translates to "mountain river cave") and even its own
thin clouds, and its end remains out of sight. It's part of a network of about 150 caves in central Vietnam near the Laotian border.

Click image to see more photos of the giant cave .. inside ..

National Geographic

Howard and Deb Limbert of England led the first expedition to enter Hang Son Doong in 2009, but they were stopped a couple of
miles in by a huge calcite wall. The team returned recently to climb the wall, take measurements and try to find the cavern's end.

[Related: National Geographic's award-winning amateur photos]




Oh! .. insert: gotta love that snowball cam.




Supercell thunderstorm rolls at sunset.

More in the link above.

Many more photographs taken in Hang San Doong and other newly explored caves have been published
in the January issue of National Geographic and on its website, where you can view larger images.

The site also has an interactive graphic of the river cave's path.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110103/ts_yblog_thelookout/explorers-discover-spectacular-caves-in-vietnam