Atea Cave
Cave in Papua New Guinea / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Atea Cave is a very large cave at the base of a 300 m deep doline in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. It is the second longest cave on the island.
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Exploration of the cave started in 1973 when the Niugini Speleological Research Expedition made a brief visit to the cave. A subsequent Australian expedition, Muller 76, extended the cave to 4.6 km of passage.
The cave was the main objective of the Atea 1978 expedition, a highly organised Australian-led expedition with 50 members from five countries, and was then surveyed at over 30 km in length and 143 m in depth, at that time classified as the longest cave in the southern hemisphere. The cave has a variety of interesting features, including several very large breakdown chambers, a lengthy and impressive main riverway, and an exceptionally large number of secondary systems and smaller passages.
Since 1978, there have been a small number of subsequent visits, extending the depth of the cave to 350 m and the length to 34.5 km.