Today, when almost every square kilometer of land is carefully measured and analyzed to find the man still untouched landscapes are truly difficult. This option can enjoy unless spelunker of the earth who still manages to discover the incredible things.
Armed with high-technology and laser scanners, cave explorers gradually discovers an underground world. And so they make more and more impressive discoveries. That has recently been discovered in the world's largest cave room, which is equivalent to the Giza pyramids in four size.
"Miao Room (ang. Miao The Room) runs after the mountains of South China (Getu He Ziyun National Park). This region is dominated by the soft rock, easily eroded by water, thus forming a wide variety of sizes and forms caves. In 2013 was the National Geographic Society-funded expedition, during which researchers laser scanned the cave leading to the Miao room.
At the end of September, the British caving conference, scientists presented evidence that "Miao room" amount to as much as 10.78 million. cubic meters. This means that the cave is the largest (by volume) ever found in an underground space.
But how to measure the cave, which is so large and irregular in shape? There are 3D laser scanners are used to capture the laser pulse propagation and reflection time, which is calculated by the amount of space.
McKenzie Funk Specialist from National Geographic explains how the process works:
"Laser Model RIEGL VZ-400 is used in architecture, engineering and mining industry, and now for the first time used and speleology.
It's about the size of a human head metal cylinder weighing about 10 kg, excluding the two batteries and other auxiliary equipment. It runs at about eye level, can rotate 360 degrees and 600 meters to make up to 122 000 samples per second.
After a few minutes on the computer screen the initial formation of a 3D image of the cave. This is the only way to "see" the whole picture of the cave. Such a level of underground hall as "Miao room" torch light disappears before lighting up the entire wall or ceiling. The human eye can only see the individual fragments of the cave, but our laser "eyes" see it all ".
