Postojna Caves
| Postojna Cave
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 The Stalagmite Brilliant , a landmark of the Postojna Caves |
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| Location: | Postojna , Slovenia | |
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Geographic location: |
45 ° 46 '58.2 " N , 14 ° 12' 14" E | |
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| Type: | Stalactite cave | |
| Current visitors: | 548,442 (2008) | |
| Particularities: | Most visited show cave in Europe | |
| Website: | official page | |
The Postojna Caves , in Slovenian Postojnska jama ( Italian Grotte di Postumia , German also Adelsberger Grotte ), actually to the full extent Postojna cave system (Postojnski jamski sistem), are located near the Slovenian town Postojna ( German : Adelsberg, Italian : Postumia ) . The karst area there is home to the second largest stalactite caves in the world open to tourists (after the Jeita Grotto in Lebanon). The entire cave system is 15 miles long. The developed part, which is open to tourism all year round, covers 5 km, of which visitors can travel 3.5 km by train.
description
The cave system consists of three main levels - the Pivka River still flows on the lowest level . Pivka Jama , Otoska Jama, Magdalena Jama, Črna Jama and Planinska Jama are connected to the Postojna Cave by the underground course of the Pivka to form a cave system . In the vicinity of the Postojna cave system there are numerous other stalactite caves, including the Škocjan caves, which are protected by UNESCO as a world natural heritage site , and the Gigante caves near Trieste in Italy .
Until 2008, some specimens of the grotto olm ( Proteus anguinus ) could be viewed in a basin in the entrance area ; This blind and particularly shy tailed amphibian occurs naturally only in the karst world of the Dinaric Mountains , including in the Postojna cave. In the meantime, the animals kept in the pool have been transferred to the “ Vivarium Proteus”, which is located 100 meters in front of the cave entrance. In 2016, a further vivarium in the cave saw and filmed for the first time how a total of 21 grotto olms hatch from their eggs.
A total of 175 animal species live in the Postojna cave system. 115 of them are troglobiont - they only occur in caves.
Emergence
The Postojna cave system is the upper part of the catchment area of the Ljubljanica , which is strongly shaped by the karst, and has been created by the Pivka, the main drain of the Pivka basin and its subterranean tributaries, at least since the early Pleistocene . Dating of the sediments deposited in the cave system showed an age of up to 0.9 million years. The formation of the caves is related to the fact that on the southwestern edge of the Pivka Basin, the less permeable Eocene flysch in the basin below borders against thick layers of chalk , which are often very pure limestone, which is much more dissolved by water than the sandstones and mudstones of the Flysch.
The water, which initially ran off the surface, penetrated the limestone along fissures and fault zones and led to the formation of caves that allowed the water network to be shifted underground. This process was supported by tectonic processes, which led to the sinking and rising of the geological units against each other, so that the water had to constantly look for new paths. The active cave sections were also expanded by the masses of sand, gravel and rubble carried by the Pivka and its predecessor rivers.
The course of the cave passages of the Postojna cave system shows two main directions. A large part of the corridors runs clearly in a north-west-south-east direction and thus parallel to tectonic faults in the cave area. A second part is approximately perpendicular to it and is more branched than the other part.
Development and use of the caves
The first visit to the cave is documented in 1213. The visits reached their first high point in the 16th century. In 1689 Johann Weichard von Valvasor described the cave in his work Die Ehre des Hertzogthums Crain . In 1818 the first light was installed, paths were laid and new parts of the cave were discovered. In 1819 the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand visited the cave. The natural scientist Franz Graf von Hohenwart tried to develop the area during this period . In 1824 the first dance events took place in a part of the cave about 500 meters from the entrance, which is now called Kongresna Dvorana ("Congress Hall "). Since the completion of the Vienna – Ljubljana – Trieste railway in 1857, the number of visitors has increased considerably. The first cave track was laid out in 1872. Electric lights were installed in 1884 and modernized in 1901 and 1928. In 1914, combustion engine locomotives were used, which were replaced by an electric train in 1959.
At the end of the 19th century, a well-frequented post office was set up in the grotto - 13,800 postcards were sold here at the 1904 season opener alone. In March 1915, this official post office was replaced by the kuk Feldpostamt 81. To commemorate this post office, the Austrian and Slovenian Post issued a joint postage stamp in 2013.
During the First World War, the so-called “Russian Bridge” was built by Russian prisoners of war to open up further cave areas. The Berlin composer Helmuth Sommer (1911–1993) wrote the work Yugoslavian Sketches while he was a prisoner of war in what was then Yugoslavia . In the first movement of his ' Balkans Sketches ' about the Postojna Cave, he impressively reproduces the atmosphere in the cave.
In the 1960s, filming of the movies Winnetou Part 2 and Die Nibelungen took place in the caves . On September 12, 1965, the IV International Speleological Congress was held in the Kongresna Dvorana . In 1968 the paths that still exist today were laid out.
In 2008 the number of visitors was 548,442.
In 2017, the operators announced that a total of 38 million people had visited the cave over the past 200 years.
In 2013, a 2 euro commemorative coin was issued to mark the 800th anniversary of the visits to the caves .
literature
- Peter R. Hofmann: Underground Slovenia - An excursion guide to the caves of the Classical Karst . Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2015, ISBN 978-3-7386-6054-8 .
- Matjaž Berčon (ed.): Postojna Caves - tourist guide. Postojnska jama, turizem AG, Postojna 2007, ISBN 978-961-6466-15-8 .
- Alfred Serko, Ivan Michler: The Postojna Grotto (Adelsberg Grotto) and other sights of the Karst. Second, supplemented edition, Postojnska jama publishing house, Ljubljana 1958 (Slovenian 1952).
Historical:
- Adolf Schmidl : On the karst caving. The grottos and caves of Adelsberg, Lueg, Planina and Laas. Imperial Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1854 (With contributions by A. Pokorny, J. R. Schiner and W. Zippe, Google Books )
- Peter von Radics : Adelsberg and its grottos. A historical-topographical description of the place, its grotto and the closest ones in its surroundings. Sights . Lloyd's Illustrated Travel Library . Vol. VIII, literary-artistic department of the Austrian Lloyd, Triest 1861 ( urn : nbn: si: DOC-MGR5RSQY digitalisat)
- Th. Canisius: A mass in the Adelsberg grotto . In: The Gazebo . Issue 26, 1867, pp. 415 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
Web links
- Postcard from 1913 with a “panoramic aerial view” of Postojna and the caves
- Official website of the cave
- Virtual cave tour
- 20 minute train ride through the cave
- Karst Research Institute, Postojna
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The most popular sights in Slovenia. Retrieved November 20, 2010 .
- ↑ Georg Lux: Tense waiting for the baby dragons. In: Small newspaper. March 6, 2016, accessed December 26, 2017 .
- ↑ a b France Šušteršič: Relationships between deflector faults, collapse dolines and collector channel formation: some examples from Slovenia. In: International Journal of Speleology. Vol. 35, No. 1, January 2006, pp. 1-12.
- ↑ Stanka Šebela, Ira D. Sasowsky: Age and Magnetism of Cave Sediments from Postojnska jama cave system and Planinska jama cave, Slovenia. In: Acta carsologica. Vol. 28, No. 2 1999, pp. 293-305.
- ^ Francois numbers (ed.): Vulnerability and Risk Mapping for the Protection of Carbonate (Karst) Aquifers. European Commission, Directorate General, Science, Research and Development, 2003. Map of the cave system on p. 10 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF)
- ↑ Georg Lux, Helmuth Weichselbraun: Forgotten paradises - discoveries, excursions, adventures in the Alps-Adriatic region . Styria Verlag, Vienna / Graz / Klagenfurt 2018, ISBN 978-3-222-13608-5 , p. 154-160 .
- ↑ Entry on the special stamp block “Adelsberger Grotte, Höhlenpostamt 1899” in the Austria Forum (as a stamp representation), accessed on February 16, 2013
- ↑ Banka Slovenije: 800th anniversary of visits to Postojna Cave ( en ) Retrieved on February 4, 2012.
