Krasno 2012: Deep Caves & Karst Symposium

A symposium on the special values of deep karst and the caves that occur within, will take place this April in Croatia’s Northern Velebit National Park.

The event, which will be in English and Croatian, will focus on themes such as the exploration, protection and management of large caves, with special focus on the deep caves in Northern Velebit, one of which – Lukina jama – Trojama, the deepest Croatian cave system at 1,421 meters (4,662 feet) - happens to be celebrating the 20th anniversary of its discovery this year.

Deep caves, such as Lukina jama – Trojama, can provide researchers with geological, geomorphological, microclimatic, hydrological and biological information to extreme depths of up to more than 2,000 meters. So far however, very few scientific explorations of deep caves have been done due to their difficult access.

Organized by the Public Institution Northern Velebit National Park, Speleological section PDS Velebit, Speleological section HPD Željezničar, Caving Club Samobor and the Croatian Biospeleological Society, the two-day event runs from April 21st to 22nd, 2012.

Check out the official Krasno 2012 website.

International Speleo Festival and SRT Competitions, Russian Federation

International Speleo Festival and SRT Competitions which will take place in the period:
13th– 17th of September 2012 near the town of Maikop, Republic of Adygei, Russian Federation.

At the same time and place the IXth Championship of Russia will be held involving a great amount of cavers from the different parts of the country.
The aim of the Festival is to share skills, opinions and experience among cavers from all over the World. The races of the Competitions will give the opportunity for everybody to check and show your skills level and to become the Champion. The participants will compete on individual distances as well as team distances for 2 and 4 sportsmen. The distances will simulate different kinds of underground works.

PLACE OF THE EVENT
Russian Federation, Republic of Adygei, Kamennomostskiy township (40 km to the South of the Maikop city), “Hadzhohskaya tesnina” canyon.
This is a place of recreation and excursions attracting lots of tourists each year.
The place of competition is well-known for its nature and developed tourism facilities. During the Festival you will have a great opportunity to visit nature reserve Lago-Naki which is well-known in Russia for its beauty and local caves. It will be possible to make rafting on river Belaya, watch competitions of Russian mountaineering, boating, backpacking tourists and travelling cyclists which will take place there at the same period of time.
TRAVEL
The Kamennomostskiy township is located 40 km to the South of the city of Maikop which is the capital of the Republic of Adygei. You can get to Maikop by train or by bus from the city of Krasnodar where the nearest airport is situated. The transfer from Maikop to Kamennomostskiy township will be organized. Anyway you can easily get to the place of the event by your own car.

ACCOMODATION
The organizers offer to the participants various ways for accommodation – hotels, huts, camping with bungalows or own tents – all on pedestrian distance (up to 20 minutes) from the place of the Festival.
Additional information will be given on the request.
Preliminary program, participation application and the information on the Participation fee of the Festival will be available in the nearest future.

CONTACT INFORMATION
Project coordinator: Sizikova Natalya – Vice Chairman of Speleo
Commission of Sporting Tourism Union of Russia.
tel: +79264306465
E-mail: dobsha@mail.ru
www.speleosport.com

12th International Symposium on Pseudokarst

12th International Symposium on Pseudokarst

"How old is pseudokarst: dating pseudokarst caves and forms"

11-14 September 2012 - Tui, Galicia, Spain

Symposium main themes:

• What is pseudokarst? – new and old definitions, classifications.
• Pseudokarst caves and their speleothems.
• Genesis and development of pseudokarst forms and caves.
• Dating pseudokarst caves and events.
• Scientific values and heritage related to pseudokarst.
• Pseudokarst: in magmatic rocks, in quartzitic sandstones and quartzites, in quartz.

Other topic in the field of pseudokarst may also be considered.

Venue

The Symposium will be held in the village of Tui located 35 km south of Vigo. The place of Symposium is situated in the Mińo river valley, at the south part of the Galińeiro Sierra, a granite and riebeckite-gneiss mountains.

Organizers:

UIS Pseudokarst Commission
Clube Espeleóxico Mauxo
Instituto Universitario de Xeoloxía "Isidro Parga Pondal", University of A Coruńa

Organising Committee

Marcos Vaqueíro-Rodríguez – chairman on speleology
Juan Ramon Vídal-Romaní- chairman on geology

Data and contact

All data on Symposium are at this webpage.
First circular
Contact: mauxo@mauxo.com , juan.vidal.romani@udc.es
Fax: (0034) 981167172

Programme

• September 10, 2012, pre-Symposium activity – field trip: sea caves and related paleolevels in the Sea-Land National Park of "Illas Atlánticas de Galicia".
• September 11, 2012, pre-Symposium activity – field trip: tafoni and archaeological granite caves located in the south side of the Vigo Ría.
• September 12, 2012, morning - opening ceremony, oral presentations; afternoon – excursion
• September 13, 2012, morning - oral presentations; afternoon – excursion; evening – assembly of the Pseudokarst Commission IUS
• September 14, 2012, morning - oral presentations; afternoon- excursions (alternative activity: workshop on granite cave speleothemes); evening: conference closing dinner
• September 15, 2012, post-Symposium activity – field trip: granite, caves and archaeological shelters in Castelo da Furna, Valença (Portugal).

Symposium field trips:

• The granite system cave of "O Folón".
• Sightseeing Tui, Santa Tecla
• The granite system cave of "A Trapa"

Timelines

• Preliminary registration: 31.01.2012
• Second Circular: 15.03.2012
• Final registration: 15.06.2012
• Abstracts submission: 30.06.2012

Estimated costs

Registration fee (including: symposium excursions, participation in sessions, abstracts and excursion guidebook): participants: ca. 65 EUR, others: 44 EUR
Pre-Symposium activity: 32 EUR/person
Accommodation and full-time food: 9-16 September - 120 EUR, 11-15 September - 75 EUR
Conference dinner: 20 EUR

Publications

The volume of abstracts will be published before the conference. Proceedings will be published in digital format and an edition in paper will be also made in the journal “Cadernos do Laboratorio Xeoloxico de Laxe”.

SpeleoBats

BARLANGI DENEVÉREK
NEMZETKÖZI KONFERENCIA
2012. szeptember 20–23.
Miskolc – Bükk hegység

Preliminary Circular
The confrencia will pay special attention to the legislative and practical conservation of the bats and their cave habitat, to the effects of cave tourism on bats, and to researches on the WNS and other bat deseases: but any paper releated to cave-roosting bats are wellcomed.

Besides the scientific presentations exhibitions and sale of stamps, postcards, gifts, badges, and constructions of fine arts displaying bats, as well as of publications and leaflets conserning bats are planned.

The programme of the conference includes a field-trip to the Bükk Mountains, where cave habitats closing methods with special respect to bats and mist-netting will be presented.

Detailed information will be available in the First Circular, as well as on the website: www.barlang.hu and at e-mail: mkbt@t-online.hu in February 2012.

For a smooth organization participants are kindly requested to send back their preliminary registration form until 2012 January 20 to any of the following addresses:

Magyar Karszt- és Barlangkutató Társulat
1025 Budapest, Pusztaszeri út 35.
Hungary
or
mkbt@t-online.hu


For more info and registration form click here.

Conduit 11

The Conduit is the e-newsletter of the Karst Waters Institute, and latest issue (volume 11, issue 2) can be downloaded as a pdf (using free Adobe Acrobat software) from the main website for KWI (www.karstwaters.org) or directly (1.84 MB) at http://karstwaters.org/conduit/KWI_Conduit11(2).pdf. This issue provides some news of past activities and future events, as well as other announcements. KWI was quite active in 2011, and will continue to be in 2012.

The 2012 Annual Awards Banquet will be held March 3 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, honoring Jim Goodbar! For reservations, send checks for $50 per person to Karst Waters Institute, PO Box 4142, Leesburg, VA 20177 by February 25. See newsletter or website http://karstwaters.org/dinner-announcements.php for details (including map).

Attention graduate (MS) students – the deadline for the William Wilson Scholarship is Feb. 15.

Mark your calendars for a variety of karst-related conferences and workshops, including the KWI- and National Cave and Karst Research Institute-sponsored conference, "Carbon & Boundaries in Karst," to be held in Carlsbad, New Mexico, January 7 – 11, 2013 (less than a year away now!!).

See http://karstwaters.org/conferences/tempurl.php for more information.

www.karstwaters.org

II International Symposium on mine caves

Since the early stages in the development of human kind, caves were used as mines to extract minerals impossible to find at the surface. Later, mining activities, digging galleries underground, allowed to reach a peculiar type of natural cavities, the so called "mine caves", that would otherwise be impossible to explore and study.

These cavities, which are particularly widespread within carbonate formations, were known since the antiquity but they started to be studied only very recently
Mine caves have shown to be extremely important in several research fields: from speleogenesis to cave mineralogy, from history of mining activities to cave tourism, just to cite the most important ones. A first Symposium on mine caves was held in Iglesias in 2004 giving a strong impulse to the research, which flourished in the following years not only in Italy but also in many Countries abroad. For these reasons the Sardinian Geomining and Historical Environmental Park, together with the Sardinian Speleological Federation and the Italian Institute of Speleology decided to organize a Second International Symposium on Mine Caves to discuss the latest achieved results in this field all around the World.

Committees

Honorary Commitee

Ilio Salvadori (Organizer of the 1° Symposium on Mine Caves)

Andrew Eavis (President of the UIS)

Giorgio Oppi (Sardinian Regional Assessor of the Environment)

Salvatore Cherchi (President of the Province Carbonia Iglesias)

Luigi Perseu (Mair of the city of Iglesias)

Antonio Granara (President of the Geomining Historical and Environmental Park of Sardinia)

Scientific Commitee

Philippe Audra (Polytech’Nice - Sophia, Université de Nice - Sophia Antipolis - Biot France)

Penelope Boston (New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology - Socorro USA)

Josè Maria Calaforra (University of Almeria - Almeria Spain)

Paolo Forti (Bologna University)

Yuri Dublyansky (Leopold Franzens Universitat - Innsbruck Austria)

Stein Erik Lauritzen (Bergen University - Bergen Norway)

Joyce Lundberg (Carleton University - Ottawa Canada)

Bogdan P. Onac (Univ. South Florida - Tampa USA)

Franco Frau (Cagliari University)

Giacomo Oggiano (Sassari University)

Organizing Commitee

Angelo Naseddu (Federazione Speleologica Sarda)

Daniela Pani (Federazione Speleologica Sarda)

Giovanni Lonis (Federazione Speleologica Sarda)

Jo De Waele (Bologna University)

Mauro Villani (Federazione Speleologica Sarda)

Ughetta Bogliolo (Federazione Speleologica Sarda)

Secretaries

Erika Portas

Silvia Arrica

Official website: www.international-symposium-on-mine-caves.org

Espeleo & Films

El Grupo de Exploraciones de la Sociedad Excursionista de Málaga organiza dentro de su programa de actividades anuales, una nueva iniciativa a la que denominamos "Espeleo&films", esta nueva iniciativa se llevará a cabo durante el primer trimestre de 2012 y se realizará cada mes con una proyección audiovisual relacionada con la espeleología seguida de una charla-coloquio sobre el tema tratado en la misma.El ciclo se inicia el próximo viernes día 13 de Enero con la temática"Pioneros". Se proyectará un documental de los años 60 sobre la espeleología y las técnica utilizadas y un audiovisual sobre las exploraciones en SIMA GESM hasta el año 1989.

Contaremos en la charla-debate con:

Antonio Gálvez, pionero de la espeleología en Andalucía,

Francisco Gutiérrez pionero de las técnicas solo cuerda y miembro del equipo de exploración de punta que alcanzó por primera vez -1000 metros de profundidad en SIMA GESM

Martyn Farr, incansable explorador y pionero del espeleobuceo a nivel mundial.

La entrada es libre hasta completar el aforo.

2nd EuroSpeleo Protection Symposium

Will be held in Muotathal (Switzerland) from the 29th to the 30th of September 2012.
On behalf of the Organizing Committee we kindly invite all speleologists and scientists related to cave and karst protection, to participate at the 2nd EuroSpeleo Protection
Symposium organized jointly by the

Swiss Speleological Society and the European Cave Protection Commission/European Speleological Federation

and supported by the Commission for Scientific Speleology (SSS and SCNAT).

Organizing institutions:European Cave Protection Commission, European Speleological FederationArbeitsgemeinschaft fur Spelaologie RegensdorfArbeitsgemeinschaft HollochforschungHohlengruppe Muotathal
The aims of this symposium are to provide a platform for scientists and speleologists, active in the area of cave and karst protection, to share the state of the art and overview of their current work, to exchange views from both perspectives on best practices’ progress and applications in Europe. The outcomes of the symposia will be the firststeps in developing a framework document on cave and karst protection in Europe in the context of regulations approaching already this topic i.e. IUCN Guidelines for Cave and Karst Protection, the Habitats Directive (Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the Conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora) and theRecommendation on conservation of the geological heritage and areas of special geological interest (Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, 2004) and other existing conventions at European and Global level. The role of thedocument will be to highlight the significant role of caves and karst as archives of natural (biological, geological, geomorphological, mineralogical, paleontological, hydrological, environmental, etc.), historical and cultural (archaeological, anthropological) values.
Furthermore, it will be an efficient tool for sustaining European caves, maybe also in the construction of a European Directive or European Recommendations and Regulations concerning caves’ protection.
Symposium schedule Saturday, 29th September: 12:00-17:30.Sunday, 30th September: 09:00-12:00; 14:00-17:30.
AbstractsAbstracts have to be written in English and French.

To submit your abstract.

Abstract submission deadline: May 1st, 2012.Abstract acceptance notification: July 1st, 2012.
All submitted abstracts will be evaluated by the Organizing Committeeby June 1st 2012.
The revised form of the abstracts should be sent to protection@eurospeleo.org no later than June15th, 2012.

RegistrationIn order to register please visit the online registration tool of the

13th Swiss National Congress of Speleology, 7th EuroSpeleo Forum.

Vulcania 9

ÍNDICE DE SEPARATAS Editorial

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Artículos:

Las cavidades volcánicas del término municipal de San Andrés y Sauces (La Palma, Islas Canarias) FERNÁNDEZ, O., R. GARCIA, F. DUMPIÉRREZ, D. GÓMEZ & F. RODRÍGUEZ (PDF, tamaño 6.97Mb) Breve historia de la asignatura "Espeleología Canaria" R. GARCÍA & F. GOVANTES (PDF, tamaño 2.2Mb) Catálogo de cavidades de la isla de Gran Canaria (Islas Canarias) O. FERNÁNDEZ & M. NARANJO (PDF, tamaño 2.4Mb) La cueva de Montaña Blanca: nuevo tubo volcánico de la isla de Fuerteventura M. NARANJO MORALES & P.OROMI MASOLIVER (PDF, tamaño 1.9Mb)

Notas y reseñas:

Reseña Bibliográfica: Fauna Cavernícola de Gran canaria, secretos del mundo subterráneo
RAFAEL GARCÍA BECERRA

(PDF, tamaño 1.7Mb)

Vulcania 9 completa (PDF, tamaño 8.87Mb)

Mujer y espeleología en España

"Mujer y espeleología en España" from Isabel Guerrero on Vimeo.

Nova exploração revela uma das grutas mais profundas de Portugal

"O velho sonho dos espeleólogos portugueses que, ao longo de décadas, têm investido muito da sua actividade em busca de cavidades profundas (mais de 120m), só nos últimos anos tem sido ocasionalmente recompensado. Um novo ânimo insuflou esta pequena comunidade que voltou a calcorrear as Serras em busca de “Abismos”. Recuperam-se memórias de antigas explorações, guardadas em arquivo, e faz-se agora uma nova abordagem.

Localizado na Serra de S. Bento, numa das colinas que recortam o topo da Costa da Mendiga, o Algar dos Carvalhos é uma cavidade conhecida pelos espeleólogos desde há décadas. Com um largo poço de 24m, a gruta terminava numa rampa obstruída a ‑30m; no fundo, uma corrente de ar denunciava os espaços abaixo. Não obstante, a cavidade permaneceu no esquecimento até que, em Março de 2011, uma equipa de espeleólogos do CEAE decidiu tentar a desobstrução. Foi assim revelada uma grande gruta que, de momento, atinge os 208m de profundidade. Em Portugal, apenas uma mão cheia de cavidades ultrapassa os 200m de profundidade. (...)"

Leia todo o artigo no site do CEAE-LPN

National Cave and Karst Research Institute

New Site

5th International Workshop on Ice Caves

IWIC-V

Barzio (LC), Valsassina, Grigna, Italy
September 16 – 23, 2012

Guide to the Volcanic Caves of Kilimanjaro

Jim W. Simons and Clive Ward of the Cave Exploration Group of East Africa (CEGEA) just published a new guide to the volcanic caves of Kilimanjaro. The guide incluldes updates from the 2011 Mount Kilimanjaro Expedition.

Guide to the Volcanic Caves of Kilimanjaro, computer-generated pamphlet, 34 pages with 11 color
plates. Price is K.Shs. 1,800 plus shipping.


To purchase, contact:
Jim W. Simons
jim.william.simons@gmail.com

Mars Caves

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera is a 0.5 meter reflecting telescope onboard the spacecraft Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Resolution is about 1 foot. Earlier this year, the HiRISE camera found a pit (shown above) on the slopes of the Pavonis Mons volcano.

A detailed view of the pit on the Pavonis Mons volcano on Mars. The skylight is 35 meters (115 feet) in diameter). The shadow cast on the floor of the cave suggests a depth of 20 meters (65 feet) according to scientists.

BricoEspeleologia

No te lo pierdas!
http://bricoespeleologia.blogspot.com

Speleogenesis & Evolution of Karst Aquifers #11, 2011

Next regular issue (#11, 2011) of the journal "Speleogenesis & Evolution of Karst Aquifers" has been launched recently.

http://www.speleogenesis.info/content/

It currently contains six articles, both original and republished from other sources, as well as a number of Featured Articles - titles, abstracts and links to original online sources of papers published elsewhere, significant for speleogenesis, karst hydrogeology and karst evolution.

More articles will be published in the current issue till its closure in the end of December, and more Featured Articles will regularly appear, highlighting current developments in the field.

All previous issues are available from the left panel on the main page.

The UIS Commission on Karst Hydrogeology and Speleogenesis kindly invites the Speleogenesis community to submit articles to the journal.

We would also appreciate your assistance in suggesting papers from various sources to be highlighted through Speleogenesis Journal as Featured Articles or re-published articles. If you come acrross a paper important for karst hydrogeology and speleogenesis, please, send us the standard bibliography description (including abstract, keywords and link to a source. In the next future, the members of the Speleogenesis Network will receive a possibility to directly enter articles into new KarstBase and mark them as recommended Featured Articles for SEKA.

Best regards,
A. Klimchouk