Gouffre Jean-Bernard
cave in France
Gouffre Jean-Bernard or Réseau Jean Bernard, sometimes known simply as Jean Bernard, is the seventh deepest cave in the world, and the third deepest cave in Europe. It is in the Alps in Samoëns, France. The first entrance to the cave was found by the French caving group Groupe Vulcain in 1963. More entrances have been found over the years since, and currently at least thirteen are known. The highest entrance, known as C37, is at 2,333 m (7,654 ft) above sea level. The cave is named after Jean Dupont and Bernard Raffy, two Groupe Vulcain members who died in 1963 in an unrelated expedition in Goule de Foussoubie Cave.
Exploration
The first entrance, known as V4, was discovered in 1963 and exploration in that year took the cave to a depth of 100 metres (330 ft). Further explorations in the following year reached the main drain, or master cave, of the system at a depth of −210 m (−690 ft). This was further explored downstream in 1965 and 1966, reaching the base of a wet shaft, the Puits des Affreux, at −380 m (−1,250 ft). Explorations in 1968 reached Puits de la Rivière at −450 m (−1,480 ft).
The public source identifies “Gouffre Jean-Bernard” as cave in France. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Gouffre, Jean-Bernard and cave.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gouffre Jean-Bernard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.