Movile Cave cut off for Millions Of Years

Not sure if this is the right forum for this and I didn't find any threads of it on ATS so I thought of bringing it to you folks

In the south-east of Romania, in Constanța county close to the Black Sea and the Bulgarian border, there lies a barren featureless plain. The desolate field is completely unremarkable, except for one thing. Below it lies a cave that has remained isolated for 5.5 million years. While our ape-like ancestors were coming down from the trees and evolving into modern humans, the inhabitants of this cave were cut off from the rest of the planet. Despite a complete absence of light and a poisonous atmosphere, the cave is crawling with life. There are unique spiders, scorpions, woodlice and centipedes, many never before seen by humans, and all of them owe their lives to a strange floating mat of bacteria.

Link to Article

In 1986, workers in communist Romania were testing the ground to see if it was suitable for a power plant, when they stumbled across the Movile Cave. Romanian scientist Cristian Lascu was the first to make the dangerous descent.

To enter, you must first be lowered by rope 20m down a narrow shaft dug into the ground

In the lake room, the atmosphere is heavy with harmful gases

it contains just 10% oxygen rather than the usual 20%

Great post! Fascinating stuff! Those creatures are horrifying and now I itch all over after looking at those pics. The article was really interesting. Thanks for sharing.

That is one of the most awesome articles I've ever read, complete with lots of pics. OP, you should elaborate your original post and add a few more quotes from the article and pics to pep up the interest, especially for those who don't view original link.

Who would think that with less oxygen and more carbon dioxide, the species would thrive and survive.

I would do it but I just got off work and I'm dead tired right now.

Alrighty I'll check it out

This is really cool!

That means the water isn't coming from above, so it must be coming from below. It now seems that the water in Movile Cave comes from spongy sandstones where it has lain for 25,000 years.

However, this still doesn't explain how the animals in the cave survive. Tests have shown that the water flowing in does not contain any food particles.

Instead, the food comes from the strange frothy foam sitting on top of the water.

The ecosystem is more similar to the ones huddled around the thermal vents on the bottom of the ocean. A closed ecosystem of sorts. The food chain seems to start with this frothy chemical bacteria soup. One can't help but wonder how far up the evolutionary ladder the food chain in there goes. Probably nothing bigger than a bat or mole. But it's hard not to think about that movie "the descent".

ETA: This was in the comment section of the movie trailer...

Movile Cave was the inspiration for this movie. It is really horrifying but the awesome kind of horrifying! Reply

Apparently this is true.
Source

Life always finds a way.