Sistema Nohoch Nah Chich

Sistema Nohoch Nah Chich, whose Spanish-and-Yucatec-Maya name translates as giant birdcage system, is a water-filled cave network about 16.5 kilometers south of Akumal in Tulum Municipality, Quintana Roo, Mexico, connected to the Caribbean Sea through a coastal spring reached by cenote. First discovered on November 26, 1987, it was explored to roughly 67 kilometers of passage and a maximum depth of about 71.6 meters, with 36 known cenote entrances, before divers connected it to the already-live Sistema Sac Actun in early 2007, at the time creating the longest surveyed underwater cave system in the world; the merged system absorbed Nohoch Nah Chich, which is now known within it as the Nohoch Nah Chich Historical section, and its deepest point, the Blue Abyss, remains the greatest depth of the whole combined system. This entity documents Sistema Nohoch Nah Chich specifically as a geological formation, the cave network whose 2007 connection to Sistema Sac Actun first made that combined system the world's longest known underwater cave.