Expedition Name (& Club): Zhongdian 2010

Destination country: China
Region:

Lat: 27.6289 Long: 99.5235 Elevation: 2000 m
MEF funding: Applying for MEF funding

Leader: Hillary Greaves

Brief Expedition objectives:

List a short summary of the main Expedition objectives.

Exploratory diving of resurgences in the Yangtze valley, with a view to finding a way into possible large cave systems in the mountains between this section of the Yangtze and the town of Zhongdian.

How can the GPF support your Expedition?:

Please explain the aspects of the trip which make it eligible for Ghar Parau funding.

As mentioned above, two members of this team have already invested significant personal funds and time in buying a compressor and transporting it into China on an expedition with no grant support two years ago.

Detailed description of objectives:

Give a more detailed account of the purpose of the trip, including any particular known caves you intend to visit, specific areas where you will explore for new cave, and scientific experiments you will attempt.

The Zhongdian mountains have a 2,500m depth potential. In the western part of the mountains there is virtually no surface drainage, and the geology is continuous massive Carboniferous and Devonian limestone down to the Yangtze valley that lies just a few kilometres to the west of the mountains. In the Yangtze valley, two resurgences (C3-1 and C3-96/97) have been located, with summer outflows estimated at 4 and 20 cubic metres per second respectively. We suspect there are large undiscovered cave systems in these mountains, and they could be very deep. However, high entrances to these systems, if such there be, are proving typically difficult to locate. The purpose of this trip is to dive the known resurgences, in the hope of finding our way into master caves from the bottom. If time permits, we will also search for fossil resurgences. We will document all finds by means of survey, and in addition by photography where this is practical.

Previous work in this area:

Give details of any previous work in this area by your own and other teams. Include references to reports and articles published on the area, and the names of any local cavers or academics with whom you have discussed the Expedition.

There have been 7 related visits to this area in 2001-2006. HG participated in 5 of these and led 4 (the first was a leaderless recce). These visits identified the Zhongdian mountains as a promising speleological prospect and carried out extensive logging and exploration of entrances on the high plateaux. A trip to the resurgences in January/February 2004 by Rich Gerrish, Erin Lynch, Duncan Collis and Chris Densham explored and surveyed the dry extent of Shui Lian Dong and located some of the sumps we plan to dive in 2010. Over Christmas 2008 two members of the present team (HG, MS) went to China for one month with the aim of diving in this area, but our diving equipment was delayed in customs until the day before we left the country.