Cave research of the Holy Mountain Athos ? Greece

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Cave research of the Holy Mountain Athos ? Greece

From 7th to 15th October 2016 took place an international expedition of the project ?Cave research of the Holy Mountain Athos ? Greece?. This phase of the project was organized by the Bulgarian Caving Society (BCS) and was held under the leadership of Alexey Zhalov (BCS and Speleo Club ?Helictit? ? Sofia). The participants were as follows: K. Stoichkov from Speleo Club ?Helictit? ? Sofia; Ilya Agapov from the Russian Geographical Society (St. Petersburg); Nemanja Miloslavlevich from Speleology Commission of the Mountaneering Union of Serbia (Cave club ?Dvig? ? Vladichin Han, Serbia). The transport of the expedition was provided by Dimitar Genov from BCS and our good friend Stoyan Grebenarov. The expedition was supported with the serious logistic support of the superior dignitaries  of the Slavo-BulgarianMmonastery ?St. Georgi Zograf".

As usual, the work in reaching of the natural karst  sites was difficult due to the thick and extremely spiny  surrounding plants ? the explorers have to make their way with the help of clippers  . In spite of the cross terrain, in the vicinity of the monastery are discovered 21 new caves with total length of 390 m. As usual, they could be divided into two categories ? natural and artificial cavities. Eight of the surveyed objects are natural karst sites ? 5 are caves and 3 ? niches. The longest explored cave reaches 23 m. Seven of the caves are formed due to karst processes and two of them have tectonic origin. There is sure proof that 4 of the  caves are used by the monks as shelter, place for living or economic  purposes. The biggest one is so called, ?The Big Cave with the Wall?.  The artificial caves could be divided into 3 categories: for water supply, for drainage galleries and channels.
The Bulgarian monks call the catchments ?Mothers?. They are built under the ground in order to provide drinking and other needs water for the monastery. During the expedition we explored and researched 5 such objects. All they are functioning, but now the water is supplied by using of plastic pipes. The longest reaches 63 m and  is built in 1862. There is found a bat colony with approx. 250 bats. By now it appears that these are Horseshoe bats (Rhinolophidae). In the two longest underground catchments  was collected much biospeleological material. The second  in length ?Mother? ? so called ?Aeroto? is 53 m, and the third - the catchment  the ?Vikentieva cheshma? (The Fountain of Vikentii) 43 m. Here we explored also 6 underground drainage canals . They collect and lead surface or dirty waters. It is interesting to add, that in many of the objects can be seen embrions, or even bigger formations ? mostly tube stalactites (macaroni). After this expedition the number of underground objects, explored during this project reaches the number 176. It is expected that our research will continue in April 2017.
Alexey Zhalov
 
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