The St. Léonard cave system in Montréal, Canada has been visited by spelunkers for more than 100 years.
But when cave experts Daniel Caron and Luc Le Blanc decided to take a trip down there, they discovered something mind-blowing.
Not only does what they found date back to Earth’s last Ice Age, which ended about 10,000 years ago — it lay undiscovered a mere 30 feet below the city’s streets.
Read on to find out more about this shocking discovery.
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While exploring the already well-known St. Léonard cave that lies just underneath Montréal’s Pie-XII Park, Caron and Luc discovered a new network of caves that stretches nearly 700 feet.
The first portion of the cave was discovered in 1812, but cave experts have long thought that more caves were hidden beneath. However, for most Montréalers, the large cave network hiding below their city was unknown.
“They’ve dug sewers and made basements, but no one had ever seen them,” La Blanc said of the cave network.
It took Caron and Le Blanc two years to uncover what they suspected was there, starting from when they began exploring new passages in 2014 to finally getting through a limestone wall using industrial-strength drills.
Once they were through, the two cave experts entered a large room, descended into an open area, and entered a tall, narrow hall.
“The walls are perfectly smooth and the ceiling is perfectly horizontal,” Le Blanc said.
They estimate the ceiling to be roughly 20 feet high. In addition to the smooth limestone walls that line the cave, stalagmites and stalactites can be found throughout the passage.
“You have evidence of where you have knobs on one side that fit perfectly into a hole on the opposite wall,” Le Blanc said.
So far, Caron and Le Blanc have been able to estimate that the 10-foot-wide passageway extends roughly 700 feet. Water flowing into the farthest reaches of the cave has halted exploration for now, but the two men plan to return in February after the water recedes.
Check out their startling discovery here:
[arve url=”https://youtu.be/7-IHboB6DM0″ /]
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