Deeper, always deeper...

Very cool -- a bunch of spelunkers have passed the 2,000 meter mark and are planning to go deeper. The BBC has the story:

Cavers smash world depth record
A Ukrainian team has set a new depth record for caving.

The nine-strong group travelled 2,080m (6,822ft) underground, passing the elusive 2,000m mark at Krubera, the world's deepest known cave.

And some more - the conditions of the exploration:

Carrying about five tonnes of equipment, they had to negotiate vertical drops and freezing torrents of water. They were also forced to blast rubble from passages that were critically narrowed or blocked by "boulder chokes".

They set camps at depths of 700m, 1,215m, 1,410m and 1,640m, where they cooked meals, slept up to six people to a tent and worked for up to 20 hours at a stretch.

Five tonnes deployed among nine people works out to more than one thousand pounds per person. A lot of responsibility keeping track of it all and a lot of hard carry too. One bit more:

They examined all unexplored leads in the cave's lowest section until they broke through to a new series of passages and vertical pits. On 19 October 2004, team leader Yuri Kasjan dropped down a pit and discovered from his altimeter that he had passed 2,000m.

More pits and passages brought the explorers to a sandy chamber at 2,080m, the deepest to date any caver has ventured below ground (gold miners in South Africa regularly go beyond 3,400m).

The team christened the chamber Game Over. But the group now wants to return to the cave to see whether it leads even deeper.

Here is one of the team: That facial expression is either "happy" or "manic" Not too sure which...