ScienceDaily (July 15, 2011) — One of the smallest ever cave-dwelling ground beetles (Carabidae), has recently been discovered in two caves in the Rhodopi Mountains, Bulgaria, and described under the name Paralovricia beroni. The beetle is completely blind and is only 1.8-2.2 mm long. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.
In Coliboaia Cave, situated in Apuseni Natural Parc, Bihor County (Romania) a gallery high above the subterranean river shelters black paintings , among which, a bison, a horse, a possible feline, one or two bear heads and two rhinos.There also are engravings. On the ground, cave bear bones have been discovered. This discovery, made by Romanian cavers, was made public in June 2010, after a site evaluation by a French-Romanian team on the 16th of May 2010. The team’s experts in parietal art (Jean Clottes and Bernard Gély) attributed the drawings , from their style, „to an ancient period of parietal art, the Gravettian or the Aurignacian (between 23.000 and 35.000 years)”.
Călin Ghemiş, archeologist at Ţării Crişurilor Museum took two samples of charcoal, one directly from a painted animal (a possible feline) and the other from a piece of charcoal found below the animal. The two samples have been radiocarbon dated on Artémis (LMC-14, CEA, Saclay) by the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement at Gif-sur-Yvette (LSCE/UVSQ, France) (Hélène Valladas). The results are the following:
- animal drawing : 27,870 ± 250 (GIFA 11002), i.e. 31,450 / 32,820 years CalBP (GifA11002/SacA23417);
- charcoal : 31,640 ± 390 (GIFA 11001), i.e. 35,120 / 36,780 years CalBP (SacA23416) .
These dates confirm the very old age of the parietal art in Coliboaia. The oldest date (about 36,000 before present) corresponds to the ones from the Chauvet Cave (Ardèche, France). This means that at those very early times there must have been a commonality of practices and probably of beliefs all over Europe.
Jean CLOTTES,
Conservateur général du Patrimoine (honoraire)
Expert international (art rupestre) pour l’ICOMOS et l’UNESCO
Scientific coordinator of the Project
tel. 0033 561 65 0182
Aurel Chiriac,
Director, Ţării Crişurilor Museum
tel. 004 0744550 736
Viorel Traian LASCU,
President of the Romanian Speological Federation
Logistic and administrative coordonator of the project
tel. 004 0745 602 203
Between 15th July and the 15th August 2011, Imperial College Caving Club and the Jamarskaja Sekcija PDT had 20 members participate in the Izgubljeni Raj 2011 expedition to Tolminski Migovec, Slovenia. The aims for this expedition were the continued exploration of Vrtnarija, where considerable efforts in 2010 had led to the discovery of 2.2km of mainly horizontal passage, all below 500m in depth. At the start of the expedition, Vrtnarija was 8796m long and 807m deep.
This summer we had less manpower than last year, but were still attempting to set up a similar four-man camp at -550m and carry out deep pushing. Our exploration continued routes which were diverse in direction from camp—soon we were taking many hours just to travel from camp to the pushing front and back.As a result of the reduced man power, we unfortunately did not manage to contribute much towards the exploration of Kavkna Jama and the attempted connection of the Migovec and Vrtnarija systems.
Our efforts were considerably hampered by the weather. We had the wettest summer we’ve ever experienced on Migovec.A particularly memorable rainstorm of 48 hours near the beginning of expedition was rounded off by a snow storm. For two periods of 36 hours, underground camp was effectively cut off from the surface by high water levels in the cave system.
In all we discovered 2229m of new cave passage taking the cave to 11025m long and 888m deep. All these extensions have been made at depths greater than 500m, on multi-day trips based at an underground camp. Vrtnarija now has the vast majority of passage, over 8km, at depths of greater than 500m.
New survey:
http://www.union.ic.ac.uk/rcc/caving/slovenia/slov2011/gw_2011-08-30_colour.pdf
Expedition website:
http://www.union.ic.ac.uk/rcc/caving/slovenia/slov2011/
The last expedition was also International and was held from 20 July to 20 August 2011, with fieldwork 26 days. It was attended by 34 people from 6 countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Russia, Ukraina. The artificial climbing in the 3 of all 4 vertical branches of the cave give totally 106 m of new passages with total displacement of + 75 meters from the level reachedlast year. The total displacement of the cave increased by + 19 m. At present the depth of the cave is 365 m (+339 m, -26 m) and length of 2643 meters. The exploration will continued next year! This is the map of Maya Arapit after the last expedition!
info from Alexey
Hi everybody
The 3rd International FSE Camp “Chamois 2011” is now over, after 10 days of intense activity.
With more than 30 participants and 10 nations, it was the most important. This year, a rented quad brought us useful facilities.
Lot of work as been done and notably:
On the surface:
- Positioning of the Pingouins and Griffes galleries with UGPS,
- Digging of Fantasmes Hole and Champagne scree,
- Discovering of the probable outlet of Griffes gallery (Invisible Cave),
- Surface investigation above Valette Highway,
- Gauging in Coulomp (about 600 L/s).
In the cave:
- Diving of the upstream sump which continues down (100 m / -24), and downstream sump (100 m / -14) with 230 m or torrent ending on a boulder choke that probably corresponds to the surface scree,
- Discovering of new passages with nice decoration on the right bank of the river (still no name!),
- Climbing in 11 Heures gallery, Champagne shafts, Hormones upper levels,
- Survey (loop Pingouins-River, Hormones upstream),
- 180 m of climbing in “13 series” above Valette Highway bivouac, and digging of the Stone Face gallery that open at half way; the draught is still present, but the surface is still 350 m above,
- Climbing in the Sulfuric canyon,
- Setting of iron steps in diverse places,
- Photo, video,
- Guiding of some local people up to Claude Shaft,
- Test of sponsors material
Finally, the Chamois Cave is now over 10 km, for a total depth of 325 m (+283 on top of the 13 Series; -42 at the lowest point of the upstream sump – the downstream part of the river being probably deeper but still not surveyed).
We will keep in mind the excellent atmosphere, and the active implication of all participants. Thanks for your warm and active contribution, thanks also to those who contributed (Karine Mayen, André Lecours, Lucien Bouffard, Eliane Viglietti, Richard Champoussin, Antoine Jornet, Michel Cozzi, and some others), and to our sponsors (Castellet-lès-Sausses and Méailles municipalities, FSE, Béal, Scurion, Aventure Verticale, Comité départemental spéléo 06, Société monégasque des Eaux, Crédit Agricole d’Entrevaux). We think to those who could not attend the Camp and those who had to cancel at the last moment.
Exciting goals are still opened: climbing and diving in the river, opening of new entrances with maybe one on top of Beaussebérard Mountain. And there is still lot to explore in the cave!
The report and the survey will be soon available, we keep in touch. Other caving weekends will be scheduled before fall rainfalls.
We will give a public conference in Annot on 26th August (see attached announcement).
Best regards
Philippe, Jean-Claude, and Jean-Yves
Trieste and Gorizia cavers returned from the field exploration in the mountains of Pindos (northwestern Greece). The expedition “Spylia 2011″ was organized by Club Alpinistico Triestino and Centro Ricerche Carsiche Seppenhofer di Gorizia with Studi Carsici AF Lindner di Ronchi dei Legionari (GO). The initiative was made possible thanks to financial support of the Municipality of Trieste. The research took place in Natural Park of the highlands Vikos-Aoos, in the Province of Zagoria. 14 people for 12 days, have been engaged in exploring, surveying and photographing the 44 new caves. The most striking discovery was a sinkhole consists of a single pit of 150m depth. Samplings were made for the recognition of the hypogean fauna and rocks for petrographic analysis. The expedition took place in collaboration with the Greek Ministry of Culture, with the group of caving SELAS Athens and the Hellenic Speleological Society. The Italian delegation was welcomed by the authorities of Zagoria and Park Vikos-Aoos which were presented the first results of the research, in turn, the cavers were invited to continue to broaden the knowledge of this part of Greece’s underground still little known by the charming landscape, rich in limestone pinnacles and deep canyons where ancient traditions and modernity are mixed to perfection.
New junction in the massive Escuain (Spanish Pyrenees). This last Sunday 31 of July, we connected the cave C9 (-830m), with the system of Badalona (B15-B1), resulting in a new cross-trip 1060m. The connection is via a small tributary near the siphon terminal to 610m at the Gallery of Velles. Here you can see a short video with the celebration at the entrance of the cave, having spent three days underground.
friendships,
Josep Guarro
For a short period of time, one week at the end of July, dozen cavers from Hungary visited again the mighty mountains of North Albanian Alps. Hiuz-cave was surveyed to -337m depth, 808m length. The cave is continuing in several places, and its length is more than 1km. During the expedition 20 new surface objects were found, and one is really promising with huge draft at -70m.
Last Friday in a tragic fall on GII (8035 m) in Pakistan, Leila Esfandyari, a well-known Iranian caver and alpinist, lost her life. She was the first female caver who reached the end of Ghar Parau and had lots of cave exploration experience. As an alpinist she had climbed many mountains in Iran. She was also the leader of first successful Iranian ascent on Nangaparbat (8126m) and climbed K2 but returned from camp 3 because of bad weather conditions that failed all other climbers efforts too. She had an influential role in the development of modern caving techniques in Iran. As Fadi Nader,UIS general secretary, says: “… Leila was at the heart of whatever we initiated in Iran for speleology. She incarnated all our efforts and thoughts…” During this week of mourning for Leila we received several condolence messages from famous cavers and Speleologists from all over the world namely Fadi Nader, George Veni, Simon Brooks, Neven Bocic, Jean Pierre Bartoleyns, Micheal Lummans,…
As a tribute to Leila I could say: She was single-minded and strong-willed who wouldn’t stop her efforts to reach what she desired. We will miss her.
http://www.explorersweb.com/everest_k2/news.php?id=20259
http://www.explorersweb.com/everest_k2/news.php?id=20261
http://www.iransplo.com/newsDetail.aspx?mode=1&id=135
http://persiancavers.blogfa.com/post-64.aspx
This is an attempt to locate the discoverer of a cave in Montenegro. A British team re-discovered the cave this month (July 2011). About 30 years ago a team of cavers were exploring an area to the east of Ledenice, above Risan on the Gulf of Kotor. At that time it was most likely to have been a team from eastern Europe.
The cave was discovered by a woman with the initials ‘P B’, and consequently ‘P B 25′ was spray-painted on a rock opposite the cave entrance. Over the cave entrance was painted what looks like ’C 9′. The local resident who supplied this information told us that inside the cave, a pitch was descended to a lake, which required buoyancy aids to cross, and was followed by 3 cascades. I would like to contact the people involved in this exploration, to find out how far they got in the cave, and what they found there. Surely someone must remember the event! I would be very grateful if you would publish this request on Caverinfo, as it seems to be the one website that is widely read by eastern European cavers.
Best wishes,
Joe Duxbury (Gloucester Speleological Society)
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