The Hadal Zone

The discovery suggested that Neanderthals were more sophisticated than anyone had given them credit for. They wielded fire, ventured deep underground, and shaped the subterranean rock into complex constructions.

[Sophie Verheyden] knew that Rouzaud’s date of 47,600 years was impressive but suspect. Carbon-dating is only accurate for samples younger than 50,000 years, so the Bruniquel material was hitting the technique’s limits. To get a better estimate, Verheyden assembled a team including archaeologist Jacques Jaubert and fellow stalagmite expert Dominique Genty. ... Their date? 176,500 years ago, give or take a few millennia.

“The new findings have ushered a transformation of the Neanderthal from a knuckle-dragging savage rightfully defeated in an evolutionary contest, to a distant cousin that holds clues to our identity,” wrote Lydia Pyne in Nautilus.

–from theatlantic.com, A Shocking Find In a Neanderthal Cave In France

"I've traveled among the hadals by visiting their evidence in ruins and museums. My task has been complicated by eons of human superstition and ignorance. But if you go back far enough in the human record, there are glimpses of what the hadals were like thousands of years ago. Once upon a time they were more than these degraded, inbred creatures we reckon with today."

Five stories high, its walls were as smooth as Egyptian alabaster. It had been whittled from solid rock ... Long ago, hadals had skinned away the face of this wall, denuding its softer stone to cut out a complex of rooms and ramparts and statues, all of one piece. Not one block or brick had been added to it, a single huge monument.

Ali estimated the fortress dated back at least fifteen thousand years, probably more. "Man was still chipping flint in caves while this hadal civilization was engaged in riverine trade across thousands of miles."

Tests have shown that the water flowing in does not contain any food particles. Instead, the food comes from the strange frothy foam sitting on top of the water. This floating film, which looks like wet tissue paper and can even be torn like paper, contains millions upon millions of bacteria known as "autotrophs". "These bacteria get their carbon from carbon dioxide just like plants do," says Boden. "The carbon dioxide level in the cave is about 100 times higher than normal air. But unlike plants, they obviously can't use photosynthesis as there is no light." Rather than using light as an energy source, the Movile bacteria use a process known as chemosynthesis. "They get the energy needed… from chemical reactions: the key ones being the oxidation of sulphide and similar sulphur ions into sulphuric acid, or the oxidation of ammonium found in the groundwaters to nitrate," says Boden.

–from bbc.com, The bizarre beasts living in Romania's poison cave

Ali paused where two of the biologists were conversing by a pile of liquefying flesh and spiny bones. "We know that spines and protective armor are the proof of expanding numbers of predators in an environment," one explained to her. "When predators begin devouring predators, evolution starts building body defenses. Protein is not a perpetual-motion machine. It has to begin somewhere. But no one's ever found where the hadal food chain begins." At least to date, no one had found evidence of plants down here. Without plants, you had no herbivores; what you ended up with was an entire ecology based on meat.

Yes, he was. :)

I talk about Isaac in detail in the Disqus thread linked here, so have a look, but yes, the gist is that Isaac is capable of going into a prolonged hibernation or stasis. I’ll speculate further that perhaps the ability developed to endure long periods of isolation while waiting out scenarios that would otherwise be a death sentence (like being trapped in a cave-in) or perhaps even to set traps for migratory wildlife in the sub-planet… or lost hikers in the Himalayas. ;)

Instead of panicking, Johnny Morris saw an adventure worth digging into when a massive sinkhole swallowed tons of earth at his exquisite golf course deep in the Missouri Ozarks. Experts urged Morris, the founder of outdoors megastore Bass Pro Shops, to fill the hole at Top of the Rock Golf Course near Branson with clay and boulders and move on. But Morris, 68, has long been a cave enthusiast — even discovering one with spectacular formations two decades ago — and was intrigued by the possibility that an unknown cave system lay underneath. To the self-made billionaire, unlocking a natural mystery by burrowing further underground is worth it, no matter the cost.

–from stltoday.com, Sinkhole in the Missouri Ozarks spurs search for cave by Bass Pro Shops founde

“The secret held, even after a civilian cave diver by the name of Harrigan penetrated a limestone sinkhole called Jacob's Well in south Texas, which supposedly transected the Edwards Aquifer. He claimed to have found a series of feeder passages at a depth of minus five thousand feet, which went deeper still. Further, he swore the walls contained paintings by Mayan or Aztec hands. A mile deep! The media picked it up, checked around, and promptly cast it aside as either an hoax or narcosis. A day after the Texan was made a fool in public, he disappeared. Locals reckoned the embarrassment had been too much for him. In fact, Harrigan had just been shanghaied by the SEALs, handed a juicy consultant's fee, sworn to national secrecy, and put to work unraveling sub-America.”

The word is that the film project is in limbo.

From what we understand, Dreamworks optioned the rights to The Descent back in 2002. David Goyer was said to be directing, but the key figure here appears to be then-Dreamworks exec Michael De Luca. De Luca left Dreamworks in 2004 for Sony where he went on to produce Ghost Rider and other films.

Yes, The Onion raises some good points about the area.

But to be fair, it’s not all bad. Ike’s first child was raised 2,650 fathoms below the Trench, and you could say she was treated like royalty there. At the time, that neighborhood had a bustling population with a strong sense community, complete with social and educational programs like meat curing (natural, organic meat only, no GMOs), swimming, climbing, animal husbandry, and child care for the working or deceased parent. Their swift justice system and strong religious convictions could be contributing factors to how quickly they bounced back after the devastating Helios terrorist attack.

It’s all quiet down here. The last we had word from Jeff was back in April when Jeff took some questions for our interview, On Hadals and Man. Jeff indicated that a trilogy was in the works, as well as what themes he would like to explore, but alas nothing else about the third book in the Descent series.

If we’ve learned anything as readers, it’s that every author has their own writing style and process. Sometimes it can take years to work out the voices in your head; just look at George R.R. Martin. I believe it’s best to stand back, wait patiently, and suffer with burning anticipation within the polite privacy of the dark recesses of my own tortured mind... but at least we’ll be suffering together while we wait for more news!

If you’re listening, Jeff, no pressure! When you’re ready to clue us in with any progress, just remember that our mutual friends at Imaginary Mountain Surveyors have my email. ;)

Radiocarbon dating found an array of dismembered body parts, including children's heads, were left there more than 3,200 years ago in the late Bronze Age from 12,000 BC. At that time it is believed the cave was used as a supernatural place where the dead would decay and pass from one world to another, rather than a place of murder.

But the scientists found no evidence of violence, in the case of these children, and believe the macabre body mutilation would have been seen as a sign of reverence. Among a haul of tweezers, coins fake Roman coins from the time, and hair pins, thought to have been deliberately left as offerings to Gods, were remains of six decapitated people. Mr Armit said: "The cervical vertebra upper bone in the necks of all of them have got cut marks indicating decapitation.”

–from express.co.uk, Caves of death, Caverns littered with corpses & childrens' heads found in remote Scotland

“Forty-three sets of children's bones lay in a row at the foot of the mound and its wall of glyphs. The children–all girls, all Ice Age humans–had been ritually sacrificed. Even Ali's untrained eye could read the knife marks on the front of their neck vertebrae.”

“They started back. Partway up the steps, Ali felt something, not quite a hand, but a grasp nonetheless, reaching for her. Mommy. Ali glanced up the stairs at Gregorio striding on. Plainly he hadn't heard a thing. She stabbed her light at the lower reaches, searching for the voice. The stone minotaur seemed to be watching her. "Maggie," she whispered. She waited for the voice to speak again. It didn't. Sleep, baby. Turning, she climbed after Gregorio, unaware of the lullaby on her lips as she hurried toward the light.”

“The bones were found in a chamber named Dinaledi (chamber of stars), accessible only through a narrow chute, almost a hundred yards from the cave entrance. How they got there is a mystery. The most plausible answer so far: Bodies were dropped in from above.”

From above? Why not... from below? ;)

“There has to be another entrance,” Richard Leakey said after he’d paid a visit to Johannesburg to see the fossils. “Lee just hasn’t found it yet.”

–from nationalgeographic.com, This Face Changes the Human Story. But How?

"Can't you feel it?" Ike asked. "This is a sacred space. You always walk to the left around sacred places. Mountains. Temples. Lakes. That's just how it's done. Clockwise." "Isn't that some Buddhist thing?" said Pia. "Dante," said Ike. "Ever read the Inferno? Each time they hit a fork, the party goes left. Always left. And he was no Buddhist."

Agreed! There is currently an audio book version of The Descent on cassette but I’m not sure how many people still have cassette players, in their cars or otherwise. :) Another of Jeff’s books, The Wall, has an Audible version, but not The Descent, and conversion of the original audiobook or a re-recording is entirely up to the original publisher, Simon & Schuster.

In his acknowledgements for Deeper, Jeff Long wrote: “The fact is that my remarkable film agent, Josie Freedman, has helped keep the wolf from our door for years now.” which I take to mean that his agent has worked hard to protect the world of The Descent trilogy from being carelessly consumed and churned out by the infamous Hollywood machine. Film nonetheless “remains part of the blueprint” as Jeff told us previously.

If The Descent is to find its way to the big screen or the small screen, who then is best to bring Jeff’s vision to life?