Schönberg cave system
| Schönberg cave system
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 The Feuertal Ice Cave is an entrance to the cave system |
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| Location: | between Upper Austria and Styria | |
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Geographic location: |
47 ° 43 '3.9 " N , 13 ° 47' 14.8" E | |
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| Cadastral number: | 1626/300 | |
| Geology: | Dachstein Limestone | |
| Show cave since: | No | |
| Overall length: | 149,123 m | |
| Level difference: | 1061 m | |
| Particularities: | Longest cave in the EU , fourth longest cave in Europe | |
| Website: | www.hoehlenforschung.at | |
The Schoenberg-cave system in the Dead Mountains is a currently known length of 149 km, the longest cave in Austria and the European Union . It got its name after the connection between the approximately 33 km long Feuertal cave system and the approximately 86 km long Raucherkarhöhle was discovered in 2007 . The Schönberg ( 2093 m ) lying above gave the system its name.
The ramified cave with 34 entrances is located near Bad Ischl in the border area between Upper Austria and Styria . The area around the Schönberg cave system is researched, measured and mapped by the Upper Austria Cave Association . The Schönberg cave system ranks 14th on the list of the longest caves in the world. Within Europe, there are longer systems in the Ukraine ( Optymistytschna Petschera ) and Switzerland ( Hölloch , Siebenhengste-Hohgant-Höhle ).
location
The Schönberg cave system is located in the area of the Schönberg ( 2093 m ) in the western Dead Mountains. The peaks of the Vorderen ( 1786 m ) and Hinteren Raucher ( 1734 m ) are the main peaks above the southern part (Raucherkarhöhle). Most of the entrances are located on the smokers' plateau west of the smokers' summit or in the smokers' kar to the north, which is also the name of the cave. The central parts lie under the summit of Schönberg. The northernmost foothills underlie the Feuertal and extend to the hanging Kogel ( 1895 m ), under which the end hall (“Another Day In Paradise”) is located.
One of the most famous entry points into the Schönberg cave system is the Feuertal ice cave, which is easy to reach from the Ebenseer Hochkogelhaus . This ice cave is a popular destination. A steep cone of firn leads to the first large hall, which is still lit by day, with two day chimneys . At the southern end of this hall there is a continuation into another hall, at the end of which the actual cave system begins with a deep shaft. Most of the time, this continuation is completely frozen, so that you often have to wait days for a melt that only occurs in summer. If the "lock" thaws, however, one arrives at the so-called "Gustave Abel Hall" and then into the main system, which is difficult to navigate from the ice cave.
Another, completely newly discovered entrance is the so-called “Separatist Shaft”. This means that previously remote parts of the cave can now be navigated relatively easily.
geology
The Schönberg cave system is located in a large block of the Dachstein limestone of the Northern Limestone Alps . During the alpine mountain formation, these were pushed over the rocks of the European continental margin in several tectonic partial ceilings to the north . The rocks were heavily used, sometimes folded and fissured . Rainwater penetrated into the rock along this fissure and led to the formation of caves as typical karst phenomena . The preferred orientation of the fissures in the rock runs from southwest to northeast, so that the resulting cave systems also have this orientation.
History of exploration
Fire Valley System
The fire valley system was discovered in 1976 by French speleologists . They discovered the first deep shafts and the first of three huge horizontal systems. A short time later you also reached the lowest point of the cave (913 m below the entrance), to which you did not return for decades. At first the discoveries were only very poorly documented, at that time the cave was "only" about 6 km long. It was noticed early on that a main corridor of the cave led towards the Raucherkarhöhle, but the merging was only discovered much later. Before exploring this connection, the merger with the Altarkögerl cave was discovered, also an ice cave on Schönberg itself. Further research up to 1990 allowed the cave to quickly grow to a total length of around 20 km. In 2006 there was an expedition to the deepest point of the cave and thus furthest from the day, at 1,061 m below the entrance.
Merger of the Raucherkarhöhle and the Feuertal-System
Every year around the first week of August there is a research week at the Ischler Hütte . During the research week 2007, the participating speleologists succeeded in finding the long sought passage between the two cave systems.
This amalgamation of the two cave systems made some previous tours possible. Several two to three-day bivouac tours in the Feuertal cave system led to a new system that, parallel to the large horizontal corridor, led ever closer to the Raucherkar cave. In three large tours, 1,500, 1,800 and 2,300 m were measured and the overlap, i.e. the distance between rock and surface, was getting smaller and smaller.
During the entire week of research, attempts were made to find the connection, but most of the corridors towards the Raucherkar turned out to be dead ends. On the penultimate day, a promising passage (“damp dripstone entrance”) was found and measured. On August 3, 2007, a final attempt was made in this passage to investigate the two unexplored passages. The first course again turned out to be a dead end. The second, a 20 m deep shaft , led through a tightly branched system of corridors (“constant inhumanity”) directly towards the Raucherkarhöhle, where the cave explorers Gerhard Wimmer, Clemens Tenreiter and Gabriel Wimmer finally merged.
literature
- Harald Zeitlhofer, Gerald Knobloch: The Raucherkarhöhle (1626/55) as part of the Schönberg cave system . In: The cave . Journal of Karst and Speleology . tape 59 . Association of Austrian Speleologists, Vienna 2008 ( PDF on ZOBODAT [accessed June 11, 2020]).
- Wolfgang Jansky, Clemens Tenreiter, Ludwig Pürmayr: The Feuertal cave system as part of the Schönberg cave system (1626/300) . In: The cave . Journal of Karst and Speleology . tape 59 . Association of Austrian Speleologists, Vienna 2008 ( PDF on ZOBODAT [accessed June 11, 2020]).
Web links
- Longest cave in the EU discovered. In: ooe.orf.at. August 11, 2007.
- Schönberg cave system Detailed description of the system with cave map and profile, Regional Association for Speleology Upper Austria
- Regional association for caving in Upper Austria
Individual evidence
- ^ Theo Pfarr, Robert Seebacher, Lukas Plan: The longest caves in Austria. (PDF; 42 kB) In: hoehle.org. Association of Austrian Speleologists, accessed on June 11, 2020 .
- ^ Bob Gulden: Worlds longest caves. In: GEO2 Committee on long and deep caves. NSS , April 7, 2019, accessed July 1, 2019 .
- ↑ Schönberg cave system. Regional Association for Speleology Upper Austria