Digital Caves


	On February 8, 1996, a group of amateur spelunkers descended into the Cave of the Black Reef near Genoa, Italy. When they resurfaced, they posted notes and maps to a website as a reference for future cavers. (Photograph by Enrico Bossan)

lmost every weekend somewhere in Italy, groups of otherwise normal people crawl through mud, squeeze between rocks, and descend sheer cliffs into absolute darkness beneath the earth's surface -- just for fun. In the world of light, these amateur spelunkers are journalists, doctors, engineers, and students. They're also enthusiastic Web surfers who have turned the Net into an important safety device for explorers up and down the porous peninsula.


	The weekend explorers rely on data they gather from the Web to descend safely. Until the creation of the caving website, there was little up-to-date information available on caves in Italy. (Photograph by Enrico Bossan)


	Tea break at 200 meters beneath the surface. (Photograph by Enrico Bossan)

After every descent, members of the Italian Speleological Society post notes and findings on their home page. The result is an instant "living map" of caves throughout the country -- an up-to-date resource on underground discoveries, hazards, and conditions.

Not so very long ago, Italian cave explorers had to rely on colorful but questionable local lore and obsolete maps to learn about the dark holes they yearned to investigate. Because it wasn't recorded or disseminated, much cave knowledge was lost, making nearly every descent a needlessly treacherous voyage into the unknown. Now, thanks to the Internet, Italian speleologists can draw from the archived experiences of others and journey safely beneath the earth.

http://net.onion.it/speleoit