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Hello and welcome to The Excerpt.

I'm Dana Taylor.

Today is Sunday, December 8th, 2024.

Hidden between the Hidden beneath Earth's surface or caverns and pathways that hold the secrets of our planet's very beginnings. Even after decades of exploration, there are still new ecosystems and signs of past lives yet to be discovered.

Trekking deep into the Earth is not for the faint of heart.

Enter a cohort of maverick scientists who strap themselves in, or rather strap on a harness,

and oftentimes scuba gear, and delve deep into the belly of the earth.

Who are these cave explorers?

What have they found and what did they still hope to

discover? Joining me now to take us down below, back in time, and into the future, is renowned

cave diver and educator, Phil Short. Thanks for joining me, Phil. Thank you for inviting me.

It's great to be here. There are several ways to explore caves.

When you cave dive, your unlimited time, outside of monitoring your oxygen supply, what are

the main challenges cave divers face and how it advances in tech expanded your ability to

conduct research?

The main boundary to cave diving and the main hazard that we have to contend with

and mitigate is navigation, because when you go into a cave, they're not just a straight

cylindrical tube or tunnel.

They're labyrinth find, so there are side passages to left and right, but they're also

three-dimensional, so there'll be passageways above you and below you via potholes in the floor and the ceiling. So the golden

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