Google doodle honors Vietnam’s ‘Son Doong cave,’ the world's largest cave!

Nestled deep within the remote jungles of central Vietnam’s Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park, a UNESCO world heritage site located near Laos–Vietnam border, Hang Sơn Đoòng has an internal, fast-flowing subterranean river and the largest cross-section of any cave. Today’s Doodle celebrates this huge cave, which was officially discovered on this day in 2009.

 It is believed to be twice that of the next largest passage. It is the largest known cave passage in the world by volume. Its name, Hang Sơn Đoòng, is variously translated from Vietnamese as 'cave of the mountain river' or 'cave of mountains behind Đoòng [village]'.

The cave's interior is so massive it could fit an entire New York block inside, including skyscrapers, or have a Boeing 747 fly through without its wings being in any danger. Son Doong Cave contains some of the tallest known stalagmites in the world, which are up to 70 m tall. Behind the Great Wall of Vietnam were found cave pearls the size of baseballs, an abnormally large size.

Expert geologists estimate the Sơn Đoòng (Vietnamese for “Mountain River”) Cave was formed sometime between two to five million years ago—epochs before local farmer Ho Khanh inadvertently stumbled upon its enormous entrance in 1990. The cave remained untouched until 2008, when Khanh retraced his steps to its misty opening, and until 2009 alongside Howard and Deb Limbert of the British Cave Research Association. The intrepid speleologists conducted the cave’s first official survey and concluded that it was the largest cave on the planet.

Inside Sơn Đoòng, scientists discovered a wealth of record-breaking geological formations including the world’s largest limestone pearls and tallest stalagmite. Giant sinkholes situated further into the cave’s depths allow for sunlight and rain to nourish two pristine jungle ecosystems, which are home to flying foxes, the world’s only monkeys to live underground, and eyeless white fish. One of these thriving rainforests is so vast, that it even has its own localized weather system!

In 2019, a trio of British divers proved there was still more to discover after finding an underwater tunnel connecting Sơn Đoòng to another cave—tacking on another 5.6 million cubic feet to its already titanic volume of 1.35 billion cubic feet.

Here’s to a natural wonder for everyone’s travel bucket list!

Source: Wikipedia, Google doodles

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