Schwarzbachfall Cave

Schwarzbachfall Cave / Gollinger Waterfall Cave
Cave plan of the Gollinger waterfall cave
Location:	On the Göll near Golling and Kuchl . State of Salzburg , Austria
Height :	580  m above sea level A.
Geographic location:	47 ° 36 '1 "  N , 13 ° 8' 10"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 36 '1 "  N , 13 ° 8' 10"  E
Cadastral number:	1336/1
Type:	Water cave
Level difference:	−73 m
Particularities:	Particularly protected cave (including the Schwarzbachfall )

The Schwarzbachfall Cave , also Gollinger Waterfall Cave , known as the original cave of the Gollinger Waterfall , is a cave in the Göllmassiv in Tennengau in Austria . It is completely filled with water in the explored part.

Location and conservation

The Gollinger waterfall cave is located on the eastern flank of the Göll massif, near St. Nikolaus on the border between Golling and Kuchl .

The entrance height of the cavity is 580 meters, about 100 meters above the level of the Salzach Valley .

Schwarzbach cave including Schwarzbachfall (Gollinger waterfall) are designated as specially protected caves (a special protection class of cave protection in Salzburg, BGH 16 ), the waterfall is also a natural monument ( NDM 197 ). There is also a water protection area here.

Geology and hydrography

The karst body of the Göll extends over about 25 km², lies over 1500 meters in the west and dips under the valley fillings of the Salzach Valley and the Bluntau Valley in the east . The Göllmassiv whole is remarkably quellarm, next to the Schwarzenbach cave only constant is Schönenbach source in Bluntautal (from Freieckstock -Südhang the Baerenwirt) significant.

The water temperature is around 5–6 degrees Celsius all year round. The spring discharge fluctuates enormously, in winter it dries up, often only 20–30 l / s come from lower-lying secondary outlets. In flood situations, 15,000–20,000 l / s, a thousand times the amount, can escape. The measurement series 1999–2011 resulted in an average value of 1261 l / s.

It has been assumed since ancient times that the water in the cave comes from the Königssee , a good 200 meters higher . Joseph Kyselak tells of the Gollinger waterfall in his travel description published in 1829:

“Much has been said against and for the origin of this body of water until a few years ago only a few deserving naturalists determined the true source of the case. After strong winds and the heat of the sun, the water mass increases steadily, but in snow or rainy weather it becomes noticeably smaller, so this cascade had to borrow its existence from a high lake, to which the winds brought faster drainage or the sun brought more molten snow masses from the Alpine heights. After several attempts the attention was drawn to a water cave on the left in the rock face of the Königsee, opposite the little St. Bartholomä castle . Rock and location corresponded to the assumption, some sacks of sawdust, which were allowed in there, came to light after hours with the Gulinger Cascades as proven documents of the successful water exploration. One had to be content with this certainty and abandon the earlier idea of ​​a large underground lake in the Höllengebirge. Whether an earth revolution or the urge of water to dug these channels for millennia may be decided by those who dare to describe certain news of the former chaos. "

This cave on the Königssee is also called Kuchler Loch there. From the years 1823 and 1866 it is reported that when the Königssee fell below the level of this hole in a very dry period, the Gollinger waterfall also dried up.

More recent attempts at marking have never been able to confirm the hydrographic connection, and the geology of the Göll massif, which has now been better researched, contradicts the much-cited hypothesis. Attempts at marking in 1978 have confirmed a connection with the Gruberhorn cave .

In the mountains the cave sinks back to valley level, so the cave is completely flooded - at least in the outer section. Since the Schönbach spring is at the same height, there is probably a mighty, tense karst water table. In the entrance area, the water level only recedes by a maximum of 20 meters, even when it is very dry.

Exploration

In 1962, the first time was classic in the cave submerged . This was a collaboration between the Hallein Frogmen and the Salzburg State Association for Speleology .

Over the years they repeatedly made diving forays to the so-called rubble hall . In 1973 Jochen Hasenmayer also dived . With a large scuba gear he came up to the stairway section called, reaching 50 meters water depth. In 1979 a first sketch of the cave was published. The Meyberg / Rinne team dived in the cave in 1995. It reached a depth of 7 m and made a new sketch. In 1999/2000 Markus Kalmar made a diving foray. This advance ended in a water depth of 60 meters due to a technical defect. The noble gas neon  (54%) was used during this dive .

In 2001, the cave divers of the SAT team and the Munich Cave Association took on the Gollinger waterfall cave. In addition to the observation and documentation of Niphargen, the result was the exact measurement down to a water depth of 60 meters and the photographic processing.

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  Cave divers in the Gollinger waterfall cave in 2001

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  Cave divers in the Gollinger waterfall cave in 2001

Room description

The portal is only one meter high and 5 meters wide, it is followed by a short corridor that after a few meters leads into a siphon lake.

The main corridor has three windows, a side corridor and a shaft. For the cave explorer without diving equipment, only the approximately 5 by 15 meter large, light-flooded cave entrance area needs to be entered, because after a few meters a permanent cover of water closes over the further course of the corridor. After entering the cave, which is now completely dominated by water, after about 5 meters you pass the name bar, a rock edge that protrudes from the ceiling and reduces the cross-section of the passage. It marks a wide but low bottleneck. Moving sideways, however, the diver can also do it with larger, back-mounted diving equipment. The corridor widens considerably and you float down the spacious sloping corridor at a 45 ° angle . The corridor floor consists of small to medium-sized, dark-colored boulders. The walls as well as the ceiling are structured smoothly, but still small-edged. 30 meters after the entrance of the Gollinger waterfall cave you are in a water depth of 18 meters and at the same time at the end of the maximum six by six meter inclined passage . You can now enter the rubble hall through the left (north) of a total of three windows. In principle, it is possible to immerse yourself in this hall through all of the three window openings, with the middle window, which merges directly into the left-hand window, being of less favorable dimensions. The right, flat window is offset a few meters and shows the extreme end of the sloping corridor as well as the entrance to the rubble hall. The right opening is also divided by a large fall block, so that one can basically get into the rubble hall via three entrances and four exits.

In this area a lot of light, centimeter-thick sediment spreads over the wedged boulders. When you leave the hall, which is around nine meters long, eleven meters wide and ten meters high, you come to an 18-meter-long crevasse that is still facing east . Here, boulders are stacked on top of boulders, the break lines are clearly visible on the ceiling. Here, too, the walls are smooth and protrude almost at right angles from the floor to the ceiling. Towards the end of the corridor, a large wedged rock attracts attention. The joint passage is on average two meters wide and a remarkable seven meters high. It ends abruptly, and through a crevice offset in the floor of the corridor you reach the box-like, profiled Göllgang . An impressive rock now stands in the way of the diver. After about two thirds of the Göllgang , this corresponds to about 30 meters of diving distance, the passage flattens a little and slopes to the left. At the lowest point of this point there is a wide but shallow side passage. In this area, the water quickly becomes cloudy, because the sediments that have washed into the cave ceiling reduce the previously extremely good visibility to a few meters or centimeters.

Following the increasingly uniform profile, after about 15 meters you reach a distinctive bend in the course of the corridor. The cave passage now faces south, at the same time the passage in the stairwell drops in small steps to a depth of 30 meters. Here you look over an edge into a round shaft. The diameter of the shaft is nine meters on average. The angular walls go vertically to a depth of around 60 meters and end in a scree slope. Man-sized stone blocks can be seen in the entire shaft area, which are baked together with great pressure. Here, too, the same light-colored sediment coating continues, which has settled finely on the darkened rock. If you follow this dump at a shallow angle, you can see the Halleiner tunnel , which is now almost 70 meters deep, into the depths . The very wide and a few meters high entrance represents the current end of research in the Gollinger Waterfall Cave.

literature

• Der Schlaz 03/2003, issue 99, pages 23–29.
• Munich Cave History II. 4/2004, pages 234–236.
• Harald Huemer: The Gollinger waterfall . In: Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management - Dept. VII 3 Water Management (Ed.): Communications from the Hydrographic Central Office . Source observation in the Hydrographic Service in Austria. Volume 70. Vienna 2005, p. 38–41 ( Online [PDF; 5.8 MB ; accessed on May 12, 2017]).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Lit. Huemer: The Gollinger waterfall . 2005, chapter 1, location, p.  38 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Lit. Huemer: The Gollinger waterfall . 2005, Chapter 2, Karst hydrological description, p. 38 f .
3. ↑ Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (Ed.): Hydrographisches Jahrbuch von Österreich 2011. 119th Volume. Vienna 2013, p. Q35, PDF (12.9 MB) on bmlrt.gv.at (yearbook 2011)
4. ^ Kyselak : Sketches of a trip on foot through Austria. . Edited by Gabriele Goffriller and with a foreword by Gabriele Goffriller and Chico Klein. Young and young, Salzburg a. a. 2009, ISBN 978-3-902497-52-9 (new edition of the unabridged original text from 1829, accompanied by the results of the research project).
5. ↑ Theodor Trautwein: Guide through South Bavaria, North Tyrol and the adjacent parts of Salzburg . Lindauer, 1865, Route 3: From Salzburg to Hallein and Golling , Golling 1) Schwarzbachfall , p. 11 ( Google eBook, complete view ; edition 1870, p. 15, ibid. ). Karl Baedeker (Ed.): Austria and Hungary: Handbook for travelers . 16th edition. Karl Baedeker, 1873, Route 13 Oefen 2 Golling , p.
    91 f . ( Google eBook, full view ).
6. ↑ ^{a b} Gerhard Völkl: The latest deep advances in Austrian caves from the point of view of the karst hydrologist. In: Karl Mais, Heinrich Mrkos, Robert Seemann (Red.): Files from the International Symposium on the History of Cave Research Vienna 1979 , Series Scientific Supplements to the Journal "Die Höhle" 31, Regional Association for Speleology in Vienna and Lower Austria, Vienna 1984, p. 88, column 1 ff, full article pp. 88–90, PDF on ZOBODAT there p. 91 f.
7. ↑ Lit. Huemer: The Gollinger waterfall . 2005, Chapter 2, Karst hydrological description, p.  39 f . (Attempts to pumping could not significantly lower the water level.).