02:35, 1 October 2016

In Kabardino-Balkaria, Russian geographers discover a cave at bottom of Blue Lake

Expedition of the Russian Geographical Society explores the Blue Lake in Kabardino-Balkaria, September 2016. Photo: urc-rgs.ru

On September 30, the expedition sent by the Russian Geographical Society measured a new mark of the depth of the Blue Lake in the Cherek District at 275 meters. Earlier, the mark of 258 meters was considered as the maximum depth of the lake, the Russian Geographical Society reports.

The Blue Lake is considered to be the second deepest karst spring in the world. The lake is situated at altitude of 809 meters above sea level, and its square is 2.5 hectares.

On September 30, with the help of a manned submersible vehicle, experts discovered on the bottom of the Blue Lake an underground cave, going deeper than the mark of 258 meters, earlier considered the maximum depth of the water reservoir. This was reported on September 30 on the website of the Underwater Research Centre of the Russian Geographical Society.

Since the manned submersible vehicle failed to enter the cave, the experts involved a remotely-operated unmanned underwater vehicle "Marlin 350".

"It was able to go down to the depth of 275 meters, and then it failed to move further. The cave may go even deeper," states the report.

Researchers believe that the Blue Lake has a chance to become the deepest karst lake in the world, ahead of the Red Lake in Croatia, which maximum depth is 281 meters, reports the Underwater Research Centre of the Russian Geographical Society.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.