HOUSTON
With cave exploration, a diver never knows before plunging into the darkness how long or deep it will be. At least that’s how Tom Iliffe sees it.
“You never absolutely know what’s around the next corner,” said Iliffe, a professor at Texas A&M at Galveston and a leading expert in cave exploration. “One day, one cave will be the deepest, and another day, you can find a cave that’s even deeper. It’s basically an ongoing challenge.”
Iliffe has navigated the depths of caves in places such as the Bahamas and the Yucatan Peninsula. But it was in a small west Texas town with a population of about 400 where he twice has led teams to explore the depths of possibly the deepest and longest underwater systems in the United States.
In January, for the second time, Iliffe explored the Phantom Springs Cave near Balmorhea, doubling the amount of feet explored the previous year. On the Jan. 8 exploration, the team was able to plunge 462 feet into the cave without finding a bottom. In January 2012, a team explored the cave to 230 feet in depth.
“There’s really no telling how deep it is or how far the cave goes,” Iliffe said. “Divers have been exploring this cave for more than 30 years, but there are still parts of it that no one has entered.”
The cave is on land owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and requires a scientific permit to explore. Few have been allowed to explore the cave because of the endangered species of fish that live in the system. Iliffe and his team are among the few able to obtain a permit.
The team, which consisted of 10 experts from Texas, Florida and Tennessee, were charged with different tasks depending on their specialties. In addition to the science, some team members mapped and surveyed the area, or took video and photos and provided light. In 2012, Texas A&M was able to provide partial funding for the exploration, but this year it was entirely self-funded, Iliffe said.
The marine biology professor is interested in the types of animal life present in the caves, which exist in total darkness and have adapted to live only in caves.
“The best way to find new animals is to go to new caves,” Iliffe said.
He said the cave water is significantly warmer than what normally would be expected for this area, which suggests the water originates from deep below Earth’s surface. The team also discovered that the cave feeds into Balmorhea State Park, which is known as an oasis with its popular natural spring in the middle of the mountainous, desert land.
Iliffe and the team hope to return to Phantom Springs sometime later this year to continue mapping and exploring the cave and to identify various types of cave-adapted organisms.
“We’re going places no human has been, and we have no idea what’s around the next corner,” Iliffe said. “This is true exploration because we have no idea what we will find. Exploration is the only way to find out.”
