Shocking video shows how the ‘Cave of Death’ kills everything inside
A video has emerged of visitors to Costa Rica’s infamous ‘Cave of Death’, leaving everyone marveling as the oxygen-deprived chamber snuffs out a giant torch in seconds.
The clip shows a guide waving a large torch with a foot-long flame into the mouth of the Central American cave.
In less than seven seconds, the powerful concentration of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) pouring out of the cave suddenly extinguishes his torch.
To further illustrate the unusual atmosphere in the ‘Cave of Death’ (‘Cueva de la Muerte’), the weight of this heavier CO2 can be seen to flatten the plume of smoke from the torch as it floats away, leaving a flat plane of eerie gray smoke remains.
The shape of the smoke as it seeps out of the cave is a sign of how this thick CO2 gas is pressing down, squeezing oxygen from the cave entrance.
“Small animals will enter the cave and suffocate, usually within moments,” explains Belgium-based cave explorer Guy van Rentergem.
The cave is continuously fed with carbon-CO2 from a nearby volcano, the Poas Volcano, which enters from the back of the geological formation.
As much as 66 pounds of CO2 flows out of the “Cave of Death” every hour, said Van Rentergem, who is also a trained chemical engineer.
“In one year, this is 263 tons of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of a car traveling 2.2 million kilometers,” Van Rentergem said, “or 56 times around the world.”
The shape of the smoke as it seeps out of the cave (above), researchers say, is a sign of how this thick CO2 gas is pressing down, squeezing oxygen out of the cave entrance – which has suffocated many unsuspecting small creatures who tried to escape. explore it
The only evidence that this invisible stream of CO2 poses any risk to living things is a warning sign adorned with ominous skulls and crossbones that proclaims, “Danger! No offense beyond this point.”
Fortunately, humans have generally been spared the deadly cave, as it is too small to fit in, although foraging snakes, birds, rodents and other creatures have met their end there.
Costa Rica’s ‘Cave of Death’, found in the Venice district, could also have this outcome, for anyone who recklessly pokes their head inside the low-slung entrance.
The levels of CO2 gas pouring out of the cave are so high that they can render someone unconscious in an instant, quickly rendering them unable to breathe.
“This is a very small cave,” Van Rentergem acknowledged, “but it is unusual in that there is a significant amount of carbon dioxide gas coming from the distant slit at the back of the cave.”
The Cave of Death, now part of the Recreo Verde tourist complex, is about 2.5 meters deep and 3 meters long, but can be viewed safely if you stand a few meters away.
Michael Adresson’s recent video of the cave, which has been reported several times this month on Elon Musk’s social media site
“Discover the thrilling adventure of exploring the Cave of Death,” reads the post from Adrescon. ‘Immerse yourself in the natural beauty of this unique place!’
The recent video of the cave from April 2024, posted by TikToker Michael Adrescon (@MichaelCon), shows an apparent guide at this mysterious geological formation carrying a large flaming torch with a foot-long flame straight into the mouth of the Central American cave in waves
Belgium-based cave explorer Guy van Rentergem (above) visited Costa Rica’s ‘Cave of Death’ in 2019. Van Rentergem, a trained chemical engineer, has spent decades exploring and mapping caves using Terrestrial Light Detection and Ranging (T-LiDAR) scanning
Visitors to the Cave of Death demonstrate its power by holding a lit torch near the entrance. Note the warning sign, decorated with deadly skulls and crossbones, that reads: ‘Danger! No offense beyond this point’
Some commentators below the original Tik Tok messagehowever, took a more scientific interest in the fragment and treated it almost as a visual aid during a high school chemistry class.
“This is why the specific gravity of gases is important,” TikToker @tehchanka noted. ‘Carbon dioxide is heavier than air and will displace oxygen (at) lower levels.’
“Methane is lighter and will displace oxygen at higher levels,” she added
More commonly called “relative density” today, specific gravity is a ratio that compares any type of gas to the density of ambient air at room temperature.
Other commenters mostly left their viewing experience simply terrified by the threat of an odorless, colorless and invisible CO2 concentration that could kill a tourist within minutes of looking around the wrong cave.
“That’s the scariest thing about cave tours,” said one TikToker. “You don’t even notice when you pass out.”
The Cave of the Death – or ‘Cueva de la Muerte’ in local Spanish – is located in the Recreo Verde tourist complex in the Venice district, Costa Rica
There are other caves around the world with high CO2 gas levels, including Movile Cave in Romania and Carburangeli Cave in Italy.
Famously in Britain, Peak Cavern in Derbyshire was the site of a tragic accident involving British student Neil Moss in 1959.
The 20-year-old University of Oxford student lost consciousness as a result of inhaling CO2, but there is some debate suggesting this was the result of his own exhalation of CO2, which had built up in the bottom of the cave shaft.
A 2022 study by Italian researchers found that natural caves are particularly susceptible to “dangerous CO2 buildups.”
That’s because they promote the release of ‘geogenic’ CO2 into the atmosphere, that is, CO2 that comes from the Earth’s natural geological processes.
“Atmospheric CO2 concentrations can reach high levels in natural caves,” the study authors said, “representing a dangerous condition for people visiting the underground environment.”