Caves in the Chicxulub Crater Region?

[Greenwood_60]

Do these cenotes have going caves?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater

"A team of California researchers including Kevin Pope, Adriana Ocampo, and Charles Duller, surveying regional satellite images in 1996, found a sinkhole (cenote) ring centered on Chicxulub that matched the one Penfield saw earlier; the sinkholes were thought to be caused by subsidence of the impact crater wall.[18] More recent evidence suggests the actual crater is 300 km (190 mi) wide, and the 180 km ring an inner wall of it."



The shaded area is the northern shore of the Yucatan Peninsula, the white dots are cenotes, and the coloration is the gravitational field.

[kotik]

As I've understood it, that entire spider-web of cave in the Yucatan owes its existence to that meteor. May have just been an anecdotal thing that I took to heart, but it sounds believable.

[Greenwood_60]

That what I originally thought. But looking at the locations, they're not exactly close to one another.

[kotik]

I was thinking the same thing. I had previously had the mistaken idea that the crater was around the area where Cozumel is.

It still seems believable to me though. It's hard to grasp the scale of how that would have been, but I could imagine it having physical effects over a pretty large area.

Gotta say, I'm curious about that area (or perimeter?) now.

[apitkin]

There are many, many caves. I have explored a few of them along with Matt Matthes and some others. They are different to the Quintana Roo caves, much shorter, deeper and often the water level is well below ground level so there are some vertical logistic challenges.

One sinkhole, Sabak-Ha, is thought to be over 600 feet deep.

Andy

[jason]

The meteor impact occurred long before the limestone that contains the caves was deposited. After the limestone was deposited, differential loading of the underlying, fractured rocks caused the overlying limestone to fracture (an imperfect analogy would be cracking of a concrete basement floor due to differential settling of a house). So, while the meteor caused the fracturing, the fracturing is indirectly related to the impact.

As Andy already mentioned, these cave systems are not as well integrated as those in Quintana Roo (which formed by different processes). Most of the caves are in the 200 foot depth range, are relatively short and require ropes to gain entry (and Sabak-Ha is one cool dive).

[cavedivingwoman]

German Yanez on Cozumel might know.

[Walter Pickel]

For those not overly familiar with Mexican states, Quintana Roo and Yucatan are different states that border one another -- just like Florida and Georgia.

The ADM team has worked with INAH, SEDUMA and the State of Yucatan for over a decade. That being said, we have documented thousands of cenotes. Unfortunately, we have found very, very, very little passage but have climbed a bunch. One of my favorite cenotes has 5 entrances to a room that about 300' in diameter. It is about an 80' drop to the water line with a max depth of about 60' -- GORGEOUS centote...creepy (beside a church built in the early 1700s -- quite a few skulls and skeletons) but GORGEOUS.

Learning about Yucatan has been interesting. When you visit, you should look for "big" trees. Save one or two in a town square, there aren't any. Many non-Yucatecos have stated that the lack of soil is the reason. Yucatecos will also tell stories of the wholesale deforestation that occurred early in the 20th century. The wood was harvested mostly for veneer. In my opinion, the absence of the old growth trees coupled with storms washing away (eroding) the soil is a good hypothesis as to why there are no "big" trees in Yucatan.

So why the tree story, I feel it holds merit as to why there is little passage in Yucatan vs. Quintana Roo. While exploring cenotes, we generally find heavy sediment levels (evidenced by a skull being visible by only a 1" circle -- it's buried). Artifacts suffer the same fate. in 2012, we were honored to help INAH recover some artifacts that were found by the ADM team previously.

In short (and to stop boring anyone reading this any further with my meandering), I feel there is passage in Yucatan; I just feel that passage is probably covered by years and years of sediment. Any flow in the the water of the cenotes I have explored and documented is generally non existent.

Years ago, Wes and Jill did some exploration off shore (in the vicnity of El Cuyo). If I remember correctly, they did find some massive flow offshore as well as the "caves" being very deep.