St. Beatus Cave EarthCache

         Karst, also known as karstic relief or karstic system, is a type of geological relief characterized by the chemical dissolution (corrosion) of the rocks, which leads to the emergence of a number of physical characteristics such as caves, Dolina, dried valleys, blind valleys, karstic cones, underground rivers, canyons fluviocársicos, exposed rock walls and lapiás. The karstic relief occurs predominantly in land consisting of limestone, but it can also occur in other types of carbonatic rocks such as dolomitic or marble.

         The term derives from the German word Karst that is the name of a region that extends from northern Italy to the south of Slovenia and northwestern Croatia. The local name in Slovenian Kras, means roughly "field of limestone." This is the region first region where this phenomenon was studied. As we said, basically karst is the simple dissolution of the limestone on water with a little help from a well know gas named carbon dioxide, CO₂. We can find carbon dioxide everywhere, it’s a very common gas, it’s the gas we expel on our, and every animal, respiration process, it’s the gas released on combustions, you know it from sparkling water and beer.

         Besides of its presence in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is also produced by biologic processes in the soil. When the rain water falls, it first absorbs some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but then, oozing through the soil, it absorbs much more biogene CO₂. In the presence of the water, carbon dioxide reacts and breaks up in two pieces producing a very weak acid, carbonic acid:

CO₂ + H₂0 = H₂CO₃=H⁺ + HCO₃^-

The presence of this acid on the water that gets in contact with limestone produce another chemical reaction and the acid solutes the limestone.

H⁺ + HCO₃^- + CaCO₃ = Ca⁺⁺ + 2HCO₃

         Originally, limestone is water proof but it contains some cracks produced by tectonic forces which allow the water to ooze the rock and starts to widen the cracks and solute caves inside the layers with the limestone saluted at the rock surface, just at the border between rock and soil. Because the amount of carbon dioxide used is so small, the amount of soluted limestone is also very small and it takes several ten thousand years or more to form a cave.

St. Beatus cave

St. Beatus Cave is located at south of the Sieben Hengste mountain and at north of Lake Thun.

         At the neighbouring Sieben Hengste area exists one of the biggest cave complexes of the Alps, with a total of 280 km of surveyed passages but without any connection with St. Beatus cave which is spring of a catchment area that extends to the north.

         One curious and interesting aspect of St. Beatus cave relies on one recent study about the evolution of karst aquifers. During this study it was observed that St. Beatus Cave, and its neighboring caves, has revealed complex flowpaths proving that even in vadose conditions, cross-formational flow, diffluences and transfluences are a quiet common feature, or, in other words, vadose karst has a very complex organization.

         St. Beatus Cave entrance is located at the foot of a steep limestone cliff from which you can observe one river springs that flows down to Lake Thun in numerous cascades. This will be only the beginning of the complex flowpaths here mentioned you’ll be able to observe inside the cave among other beautiful dripstones speleothems.

         Being a river cave with has numerous ponds, lakes and waterfalls, its older drainage system ends under the lake in several underwater springs. Sometimes, when heavy rains in the north result in enormous amounts of water, the lake starts to boil by the enormous amounts of water upwelling inside the lake under high pressure.

How can you log the cache?

To claim this cache as found you should send to this cache owner a message answering correctly the following questions:

• How can be possible the existence of some plants inside the cave?
• Identify three animals that you can you “see” inside the cave?
• What’s the air temperature inside the cave?
• Post with your log one picture of you at the cave entrance “saying” bye-bye with your hands

If you believe you have successfully completed this Earth Cache goals and has already sent to this cache owner all the requirements as requested, Please, feel free to log it as found. Later we will verify the requirements sent and, if necessary, contact you in order to make the necessary corrections to your log.