Cango Cave

Michael Laumanns - 29/11/2015

(Oudtshoorn, Cape) Famous show cave with a profusion of massive and filigree speleothems, which have delivered speleothem isotope dating (see references above). Developed in Upper Precambrian limestone by phreatic solution. Discovered and explored principally by a roadmaker named Van Zyl around 1780. Contains South Africa’s largest underground chamber, measuring 220 by 35 by 35 m. A Doctoral thesis on the cave (Craven 1994) cites hundreds of references. A more recent update is Martini (2000). The old section of Cango Cave (“Cango P’) was extended for about 300 m in 1972 ("Cango II”). Progress was stopped by a sump. Efforts to dive the obstacle failed in 1973 but finally SASA (Cape) succeeded in 1975 after lowering the water level in the Sump with a pump, resulting in the discovery of "Cango III”. Subsequently the small chambers of "Cango IV and V” were explored bringing the length to the above-mentioned state (Crombie et al. 1980). Truluck (1991) reported 5,280 m of length, Depth 55 m. Map taken from SASA Bull., 34 (1994).