Successfully finished  the mission of the 6 – Bulgarian cavers team in Tunisia. Group which was composed of representatives of Sofia caving  clubs “Academic”, “Vertilend”, “Keving”, “Helicitit” and “Black Peak”: Alexei Zhalov - Head; Gyorev Vanyo, Kamen Bonev, Constantin Stoilov, Nikolai Kamenov and Svetlomir Stanchev from the SC ”Prista” – Ruse carried outthe 6-day course for initial training for cave rescue techniques.

 From the Tunisian side event was organized by the Association “Sport for All” and the Speleological Association of Zaghouan . Its realization was supported by speleo equipment and financially by the Fund “Euro Speleo Projects” of the European Federation of Speleology a result of prepared and submitted by the SC”Vertilend”- Sofia project.

In the training took part  3 cavers from Algeria, 2 Iranians, 4 cavers from Morocco and 12 from the host country or a total of 21 persons.

The practical exercises was held in a labyrinth of abandoned mine ores at the foot of the Zaghouan Mt. (1295 m above the sea) rising above the town. The natural range enable the participants to learn and practice techniques for dealing with stretcher transportation in a cave, rigging , the hauling up of the stretcher  in vertical sections of pulley and counterweight system, building and running a trolley, haul down the stretcher etc.

Someone managed to master most of the above methods and others of them, but in the end everyone left the course with more knowledge and skills certified for participation in courses, but not that he is qualified “Cave recsuer ”.

The course enabled the Bulgarian cave rescuers to share their experiences in cave rescue. During his stay in Tunisia the Bulgarian cavers penetrated in 4 caves in Jebel Serge Massif (1375 m above the sea) located about 150 km southwest of Tunis. Larger than they are Rhar Jebel Serge or mainsail de la pass which is the deepest cave in Tunisia (displacement of 305,8 m (+139.3; -166.5) and a length of 2.5 km) and fantastic water cave Rhar d’Ain et Dab which is 2.7 km long.
During the stay was collected zoological material from outside, and in particular cave invertebrate fauna. 
Undoubtedly made one of the secondary, but important destinations of the Bulgarian mission – to lay the foundations for fruitful cooperation with cavers from North Africa and Southwest Asia.
We believe that our mission in Tunisia was very useful and successful and we hope it can be appreciated at home and abroad.
The group due to their and our foreign colleagues sincere and heartfelt thanks to Nicola Landzhev and his company “Landjoff” for his exceptional assistance to having made especially forthis training cave rescue stretcher – something without which the training would be impossible m.

Photo images from the event can be found at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/103481077105484644263/RescueTrainingTunisPhotosKamenBonev#

https://picasaweb.google.com/103481077105484644263/TunisiaCaveRescueTraining2012#

 
Reported: Alexey Zhalov

I send this message in order to inform you about our session submission in 34^th TAG 2012.

We plan to submit a proposal for a half- day session under the topic:

The Morning Twilight of Cave Archaeology. Theoretical approaches and methodological perspectives in the Cave Archaeology of 21rst century.

If would you like to join in, please send an email with your paper’s title and short description (max 100 words) at pkt_55@hotmail.com until the 20^th of May 2012.

We will inform you about the abstract submission as soon as possible.

For any queries please drop a message in my academia/facebook account.

Kind regards,

Konstantinos Trimmis

See you soon on EuroSpeleo Magazine !

Laos 2012

After three superb weeks spend in the Khammouane karst, in the central part of Laos, the team, 14 french and swedish cavers, is back home now. The february expedition was a direct sequel of 2011, with the same caves as targets. 16 km of new passages have been added to the 25 km already surveyed last year.

Not far from Thakhek, the province capital, the Khoun Dôn-Houay Saï system is now 27 km long, and going… Soon to be the longest cave in Laos. Our most outstanding
exploration has been undoubtedly the Houay Saï river found in Tham Kouan Kaohong, a new cave discovered in the wake of the Houay Saï cave. The navigation in 40 m large
passages will remain a great caving moment in our memories. The exaltation of gradually building up one of the largest cave system of South-East Asia cannot be told, it has to be experienced.

But other explorations have also been rewarding. During the second week, the caves in the large mountain range south of the Hin Boun river have been extended. Tham Lom is now 5.8 km long, and 5 other caves are over 2 km. Explorations there were more difficult, requiring systematic climbs to access upper fossil passages. The third week was devoted to the exploration of the Hin Boun river lower valley. Tham Deng, a cave used for its phosphate deposits by nearby villagers, is now over 4.2 km long.

However, the biggest challenge to come is probably to help our Laotian friends to invent their way to preserve this magnificent karst while developing tourism in a balanced and responsible way. But that’s another story…

More information on www.explo-laos.com.

The Laos 2012 expeditions are back from three weeks caving and therefore a
short e-mail to share the findings and the status of the Northern Lao –
European Cave Project.

This year marks the 10th expedition in annual succession after having the
first trip in December 2002. The results can be shown to the international
caving community. We visited 6 provinces and mapped 92 km of cave passages
in Northern Laos . You and in total 36 cavers from 15 nations helped to
achieve this. But it is not only the caving, it is also the country and
the impressions we left by the close cooperation with villages,
authorities and development agencies. All work is nicely published and
available as 4 BHB books “ The unknown North of Laos Vol. I – IV”.
It is very encouraging to see that the outcome is of use and benefit for
other parties like:

a.) German-Lao development project to establish the Chom Ong
system for regional ecotourism. It is mentioned in all guide books and
there is are several links to our webpage (http://www.oudomxay.info ;

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/tonywheeler/travel_blogs/chom_ong_caves/)

b.) Vieng Xay memorial site for historical documentation within a
national monument development
(http://www.visit-viengxay.com/viengxay-today.html)
c.) MMAP archeological project from Penn university which used the
books to start investigation on the described entrances for Neolithic age
inhabitants (http://middlemekong.wordpress.com/about/)
d.) Universityof Tuebingen, another archeological project from
Prof. Madeline Boehme

Thank you for all your contributions and the enjoyable time of caving
together in a highly inspiring international spirit!

The 2012 expedition was a re-visit of former areas driven by the short
term non-accessibility of Sayabouli province. It was also the first time
two independent expedition teams were on the way. I had some doubts at the
beginning what a re-visit will bring, but we extended the caving areas
with promising leads. Vieng Phouka revealed shorter river caves of several
hundred meter length along the roads, the surprise came in Muang Ngoy with
a 2 km river system which is still going. Vieng Xay had many caves along
the road to the Vietnamese border, the surprise was a new found area just
25 km North of Sam Neua with disappearing rivers.

It means for me that we achieved after 10 years the mission of the project
to obtain an overview of the potential for caves in Northern Laos, but we
are still far away from having a regional understanding. Alone the
discovery of Chom Ong in a not really inspiring hill is a strong hint to
look more regional. I am think therefore it is important to involve and
actively ask our local contacts and partners, who are at site and have
some time at hand, to help and report areas for investigation.

You find the latest results at the webpage www.laoscaveproject.de at
“expeditions 2012″ with a summary, pictures and a cave list. The section
“caves/survey data” has a statistical overview on the last 10 years of
exploration.

I want to conclude with special thanks to Michael who joined me on the
very first trip in 2002 and encouraged me to start mapping as well to
Helmut who joined reliable every expedition possible and keeps the cave
registry of the project up to date. Finally the support of the FSE is
greatly appreciated by granting several times Euro-Speleo Project Status.

I hope to see you at one of the coming caving events, another expedition
or may be during a visit to my living place Bern. Please feel welcome.

Yours
Joerg

http://www.speleoaquanaut.cz/clanek-sledujte-on-line-expedice-xibalba-2012-1-160

24. February 2012: System Chun Che Chen was connected with system  K’oox Baal. The overalll length is 62 km!

Regards

Martin

This year we had a lot of beautiful or interesting photos from
the participants of 10 different countries. The contest has finished
and here are the winners:
1st place: Roberto F. Garcia, Spain.
2nd place: Viktor, Ukraine.
3rd place: Kirill Bagriy, Russia.

Link: http://www.speleo.lt/index.php?id=702

Regards,
Laura Tamosevice
Lithuania

According to the historical evidences, Kythera had been searched speleologically, initially from Ioannis Petrocheilos himself, the founder of the H.S.S. from the early ‘ 30s to 1950. The next expedition was done by the Department of Crete of the H.S.S. (D. Crete) in 2002. The H.S.S. Department of Northern Greece continued the research in the island in a new base. It was organized the speleological project of Kythera (Cerigo Speleological Project), in which participated valorized scientists and speleologists from the Hellenic Speleological Society, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of Crete.

In order to achieve the goals of the project, three exploratory expeditions were organized in the island, during November 2009, April 2010 and April 2011. In the researches participated 34 scientists.

The expedition of 2009 (Cerigo 2009) has an identifier character. In the first part, we had in mind to control and verify the old cave recording from the decades of ’30, ’50 and ’60. Apart from these, we had to settle all the abeyances from the expedition of the Department of Crete. Finally the expedition visited 11 caves and mapped the 7. From the 11, the 3 were new recordings and the 8 were recordings of I. Petrocheilos. The 3 caves were mapped by the department of Crete and the 1 from Anna Petrocheilos.

This expedition showed the uniqueness of the Kythera’s speleological wealth and was decided that a repetitive expedition with the attendance of more speleologists will take place during the Easter of 2010.  It was the first time, in the Cerigo 2010 expedition, that not only marine and submarine caves were explored, but also began the recordings of the island’s potholes. The expedition lasted 7 days and each members visited 25 caves. They mapped 14 of them. Finally 21 of 25 caves were new recordings.

In Cerigo 2011 expedition, 15 new caves were recorded and explored, while simultaneously the abeyances from the previous expeditions were also completed. Up to now results are related to geology, biology, archaeology and medieval History.

The most significant example are the 14 cave- churches, that have been record by the program and henceforth A. Semoglou, assistant professor of Byzantine archaeology and Art, study on them. In Addition to this, another part of the research focus on the caves which had use during the Late Bronze- age (Minoan- Mycenaean period).

The results of these first researches of N.D.G. of the H.S.S. in the island of Kythera were published as a preliminary report in a special publication of D.o.N.G. In this website you could find further information for the project, the fields researchs, and publications in also Greek and English.

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Finding 2 kms a Hungarian and Italian team continued the exploration of the Abysso Led Zeppelin (-1030 m) in January 2012. The main result of the camp is a long horizontal gallery, that starts from the deepzone (-950) and goes wery close to the surface on the sharp side of the moutain.

Shortly about Zeppelin: The cave is located on the Italian side of Canin plateau, on the Pala Cellar zone, 2130 m above the sea level. Italian cavers explored in the ’90-ies until -960. The connection between the cave and the Gliun spring (460 m asl, Slovenia, Bovec) was proved by water tracing (Casagrande, Cucci, Manca, Zini 1999.) We started to continue the work in Zeppelin in 2008. because of the expressive 1600 meter altitude difference between the entrance and the spring.

We went over the old endpoint in fossile galleries in the last years and reached -1030 m. A sudden flood nearly turned into tragedy 2 years ago in November, when two young caver became closed by a 100 meter risen water for 62 hours.

During the last week camp the Zeppelin didn’t become deeper. The new gallery we found got the name after the strong airblast. Sirocco could be the main water-collector of the Zeppelin in the anicent times. That is on the same alititude above the sea level like the two other main water collector of the North Canin, the Grande Meandro in Gortani and the active level of the Sisma-Fonda-Laricretto system (1200 m asl). A younger tectonical movement under the ridge of the Canin made a new way to the water to the direction of the Gliun later. These new drains can be narrow, that caused the sudden flood 2 years ago. It can be a bifurcation: the recent main spring of the Zeppelin is the Gliun, but during strong hydrologic activity, across the new gallery it can feed also the old spring of the system on the north side, the Goriuda (850 m asl.).

CGEB: Marco Sticotti, Space, Giusto (Italy)

Canin Explo Team: Zih József, Kiss Péter, Szabó Leó (Hungary)

I think, it will be interesting as “speleonews”. We finished “drawing” maps of the Snowcave: very big and beautiful cave.

download file you can here: http://club13mm.ru/topo/

with best regards: Kostya (Rad)