Talk:List of caves in the United Kingdom

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Subdivision of list

There are many ways to subdivide these lists features as they grow longer. I thought it useful to break them down by caving region (whilst retaining alphabetic sequence within each section) though there is an argument for having them all in one searchable table with columns that can be ordered. cheers Geopersona (talk) 16:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Largest cave

Tricky this one. 'Deepest' is reasonably easily measurable, 'longest' perhaps too though one could distinguish (if the references exist) between the cave network with the longest length of passageways all taken together and the cave with the longest single route between its ends; that's to say a maze-like system might have many kilometres of passage within a small geographic area whereas at the other end of the spectrum a cave with a smaller length, if in effect a single linear tube, would require a caver to travel further from one extremity to another. That all comes down to definitions and Wikipedia can only follow what others have offered up elsewhere.

'Largest cave' does rather depend on what is being measured. I guess in the case of Calder's Geo we're talking about the volume of an individual chamber, that's what the given sources seem to mean. However the total volume of a more extensive system is likely to exceed the volume of the entire Calder's Geo though, making it by some definitions, a larger cave. The sources say 'largest cave' so fair enough, WP goes by its sources, but I think additional explanation might also assist. cheers Geopersona (talk) 18:56, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot find fault with anything you say but I have no sources for such an "additional explanation" to hand. The pre-existing style seemed to follow that of UK caves but their listings don't include 'by volume'. The BCRA may have something but I have now exhausted my knowledge of speleology and must retreat to the surface lest my my nervousness becomes apparent. Ben Mac Dui 20:09, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]