How Son Doong Cave was discovered?
Son Doong was discovered by Ho Khanh in 1999 while he went into forest to find agar wood. Once day, a heavy rain suddenly falls on the forest. He obliged to find a contemporary shelter until the heavy rain was over. Coincidently, that place is Son Doong cave. In his memory, it is really a mammoth cave with strong wind blowing into big hole of the cave. But Mr. Khanh didn’t recognize the huge values of Son Doong cave for 15 years later. The secret of Son Doong was found when he told story of this place for explorers, who came from British Caving Association. Until 2009, Ho Khanh and British Scientist completely finish their discovery in Son Doong cave due to its complex structures and technique conditions.
Why Son Doong Cave renowned as the world’s largest cave?
Researchers estimate that Son Doong Cave was created until 2 – 5 million years ago. In the past time, there was a river flowing through the limestone mountains and eroding it, which formed an giant subway under this mountain. All parts of soft land fell down and created huge cave arches. Son Doong Cave is measured with 150m wide, 200m high, and nearly 9km long. Geographers said that the size of Son Doong Cave is beyond imagination. It can contain 68 airplanes of Boeing 777 and a 40 floor skyscraper in New York.
With those measurement, Son Doong Cave surpass Deer Cave in Malaysia (with 100m high, 90m wide and 2km long) to become the king of world’s natural caves.
What is special features of Son Doong Cave?
Son Doong Cave certainly brings a breathtaking feeling for visitors because of both its pristine beauty of nature and its glorious scene of limestone blocks.
Son Doong Cave is not only famous for its giant size, but for its biodiversity. Scientists found a primeval forest, where human beings haven’t ever discovered before. Thanks to big holes on cave arches, the cave can get sunlight to rear up the survival of plants and animals. Visiting this pristine forest, there is no dark and silence; instead, we can feel the fresh and tranquil atmosphere of the forest, enjoying the twitter of birds and discover the beauty of its flora. With those wonderful features, scientists called it as an Adam Garden on Earth.
Another interesting thing is that Son Doong Cave owns an enormous system of “pearl” and stalactites. For billions of years, the continuous erosion of limestones’ surface created the underground pearls (its outside layers and shape like undersea pearls, but its main component is calcite). Especially, the normal size of pearl in caves is only about 1cm, but with Son Doong Cave, its size is as big as a baseball.
Besides, some of stalagmites reach 70m high that visitors can gaze out the magnificent beauty of Son Doong Cave at high altitude.
In Son Doong Cave, there are also small streams or underground rivers flowing through some branches of the cave.
With the stunning beauty of Son Doong Cave, this destination attracts a large amount of visitors for discovering. However, there is only 200 visitors every year due to some requirements such as health conditions, adventurous skills…
